


The Paradox Trap

by hhertzof



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Sarah Jane Adventures, Sarah Jane Smith (Big Finish Audio), Strange Days at Blake Holsey High
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-14
Updated: 2010-09-14
Packaged: 2017-10-11 20:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor wasn't the only person forgotten when the universe rebooted after the events of <em>The Big Bang</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Ordinary World

**Author's Note:**

> Contains spoilers for: Black Hole High: Conclusions, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, Genesis of the Daleks, Planet of Fire, Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, The Blimovitch Link, Bullet Time, Sarah Jane Smith: Dreamland, and possibly other things I have forgotten.
> 
> Thank you to voksen for the technical beta.
> 
> Thanks to all the lovely chatters who cheered me on and held my hand, and to and who would have been my betas if I hadn't strayed to close to the wire and may yet do some betaing and Britpicking after the fact. And a special thank you to who managed to make me lovely artwork, despite not knowing most of the fandoms.
> 
> [Cover made by the lovely sanadafaye](http://marblebun.com/Pictures/Bigbang/longposter.png) [Please direct all complements about the artwork here](http://sanadafaye.livejournal.com/28723.html#cutid2)

> What is happening to me crazy some would say,  
> Where is the life that I recognize gone away  
> \- _Ordinary World_ Duran Duran

Reading physics at uni disappointed Sarah Jane Smith and the lack of an astrophysics department was just _wrong_. But then, there was so much wrong with this universe, she didn't know where to start. The problem was that she was good at her chosen field. At memorising formulas that didn't- that couldn't- apply to the world around her.

This reality was so paper-thin that she'd _known_ all her life that time was out of joint. So she'd set herself the task of figuring out why, whilst the people around her continued in remembered patterns that bore no relation to the world they lived in. Once, in another life, she'd built her own telescope at the age of ten, grinding lenses as the early astronomers would have, all the while encouraged by her Aunt Lavinia. Here there were no telescopes and nothing to see in the night sky.

Sarah Jane didn't understand why the world had technology based on a space program that had never happened, but she took advantage of it whenever she could.

She started with the sun. If there were no stars in the sky, then it must not be a star. Reading all that had been written, studying the work of those that had come before, then taking her own readings. If the equipment didn't exist, she invented it. She mapped its cyclical pulses, took brightness readings and tried to interpret the sounds she picked up on the rudimentary radio telescope she'd cobbled together. She tried to publish her findings and the scientific community laughed at her. She wasn't surprised - but she didn't go into scientific research either.

Instead, she became the nut that people said she was. If the world couldn't see what she saw, she would look at what the world saw, and what they saw was the Pandorica. So once she left uni, she got a grant to study it.

She spent days and nights at the museum, poking and prodding the Pandorica. Transcribing, measuring, scanning. As she had with the sun, when the equipment didn't exist, she built her own. When her prototypes could be used for other things, she patented them and sold them, giving her a modest income. For once, she wasn't afraid to alter the future. If her readings were right, this world had no future.

The Pandorica gave her purpose, especially when memories of other timelines threatened to overtake her. Sarah Jane began to give lectures at the museum, searching for faces in the crowd, faces that she never found. She wrote a book and somehow, at the age of twenty-three, became the world's foremost authority on the Pandorica. Given the world, this wasn't saying much, but she took advantage of the freedom it gave her.

 

Not long after, she woke from a nightmare, screaming "Doctor" and _knowing_ what was exploding up in the sky. He wasn't up there- she was almost certain of that. But someone was, and she redoubled her efforts.

Each day brought fresh memories of her travels with the Doctor in that world now lost and she mined them for possibilities. A memory of _borrowing_ his sonic screwdriver early on so that she could take it apart to see how it worked sent her running to an electronic parts store. She'd translated the inscription on the box once, and now she did so again more accurately. It still told the same story: a horror so great that only this box could contain it. She thought of Prometheus, and what _he'd_ been imprisoned for, and soldiered on.

It took ten years to get the sonic screwdriver to the level of precision she needed, but aside from her lectures and occasional paper, she didn't have that much else to do. The people who could help her were still at school- or perhaps they had never been born.

The lock was simple and impossible; a biometric lock set to the DNA of the the person trapped inside. Biodata technology was decades away from being invented here, but she hadn't just seen the wonders of the universe with the Doctor, she'd seen the technology too. And she'd always been a tinkerer.


	2. Everyman

> I'll never know the thrilling pain of blasting into space.  
> I'll never know what mysteries lie in some unearthly place.  
> I'll never see new stars be born or watch the old ones die.  
> I'll never hear a child from an alien planet cry.  
> - _Everyman_ \- Julia Ecklar

 _1985_

She tried several times before she got it right. Projecting a biometric image to fool the computerised lock was trickier than she expected and the technology just wasn't there yet. But this was where her lectures paid off.

Legends of the Pandorica, this one was called. There were two reasons she'd become a journalist in so many realities. The first was that she could dabble in many fields of scientific study; the second was because she was a storyteller at heart. The museum staff didn't care what stories she told as long as she continued to draw crowds, so she told people stories of the Pandorica and the monster trapped within as they had developed in whatever cultures were left on Earth.

She noticed him instantly in the crowd of uniformed boys. No Doctor here to save him from the horror he claimed St Brendan's had been. No Trion either, but he had been remembered. However, she wasn't able to get him alone and she didn't know how to reach him.

"Sarah Jane, I don't suppose you'd be willing to take a volunteer this summer," Barbara asked her a fortnight later. "I know you don't normally, but I've got this one kid who was apparently really inspired by your lecture, and well, he only wants to work here if he can work with you. Apparently there's a rather large donation attached, so-"

"Hmm," Sarah Jane said non-committally, though her mind was working frantically. "I might consider it. I've got a few things I want to try that could use a second pair of hands. Name?"

"Vislor Turlough. He was at St Brendan's and he's due to go to University in the fall." Barbara hesitated. "The thing is, he's a bit of a troublemaker, and his guardian wants him occupied this summer."

Sarah Jane allowed herself a slow smile. "I was a bit of a troublemaker at school too. And after. I'll do it."

"Thanks," Barbara smiled back. "I was supposed to use this as the last bit of arm-turning, but the director said that if you agreed the Pandorica department would get half of the bequest."

"Lovely. When can I expect him?"

"His school lets out on the 28th, so he'll be in on the 29th to set up a schedule."

* * *

Turlough turned out to be just what she needed. They spend a the first month etching circuit boards, soldering leads and arguing as though they'd known each other all their lives.

"It's not very elegant," he objected, eyeing the confusing tangle of wires that might or might not even work.

"It's Earth in the 1980s. We have to work with what we can get. They barely have personal computers out there. And while I might be past that, that doesn't mean I know how to build microchips yet. Or that I could get the equipment if I did." Sarah connected one last wire. "We're running short on time. Tonight we program. And tomorrow night-"

"The Pandorica opens. We hope." Turlough sighed. "At least this is better than boarding school."

"Anything's better than boarding school," Sarah agreed.

"At least your school was attacked by Daleks. We just had lessons."

"You didn't have to learn embroidery." They'd had this fight before in other timelines, but it was comforting, nonetheless.

"You didn't have footer."

"You didn't have Joey Maynard sticking her nose in at the most inopportune times."

Turlough smirked. "Do I need to remind you that her sons go to St Brendan's? Trust me, she did her share of nose-sticking-in." He changed the subject. "Have you been in contact with Victor?"

"Not yet. This world is just too blurred, if you know what I mean. Everything's so smushed together that-"

"You can't trust your memories of where he might be found. He has to be here somewhere, if we are."

"The universe remembers the last time the stars went out," Sarah Jane replied. "This is how we met the first time around. Except it was a different museum-"

"And your speciality was astronomy. Because you'd been branded a nut by the scientific community for harping about the starts going out."

"They believed me in the end. When it was too late." She tilted her head and looked at him. "I wasn't sure you'd be here. But then, this world isn't built on logic."

"Memory is it's own form of logic, isn't it?" Turlough gave her his crooked smile. "You, me, Vincent and Sarah in a basement somewhere plotting to save the world through time travel. You should write that story down someday."

"I did, remember. It's called the Book of Tomorrows. Or I will. It gets all muddled." Sarah Jane leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples. "But I think you're right."

"I'm going to make a note of that, you know. Today, in this timeline, Sarah Jane Smith told me I was right," Turlough replied as he studied the box they had built. "To think that on my world that would be the size of a deck of cards."

"I think we did well to fit it in a shoebox-" Quite literally. "-given the level of technology. Do you want to order in and do the programming tonight?"

"No time like the present." His eyes drifted up to the ceiling as though he could see the sky. "We don't know how much time we have left. Indian. And I'm afraid you'll have to pay."

"I remember the pocket money struggles from my own school days. And I was stuck on a mountain with very few shops. The menu's on the bulletin board above my desk." Sarah Jane thanked the national obsession with the Pandorica for the funding that kept her in the latest computer technology. They'd had to disassemble the BBC Micro for parts, but she hadn't minded because she'd just replaced it with a Commodore 64. She booted up and waited.

Turlough placed the order, not bothering to ask what she wanted. "I don't remember it doing _that_ in the store display. I tried to persuade the solicitor that I needed one, but apparently he was afraid I'd use it in ways I shouldn't."

"I persist in writing programs that push the limits of the CPU and RAM. And I've upgraded both in ways that the computer companies haven't thought of yet. It's probably still not a patch on what you had at home."

"As long as we don't have to write the program in assembly or on punch cards, I'm sure it will be okay." He patted her gently on the shoulder. "Earth will get there someday."

"Not this Earth," Sarah Jane replied sadly. "We've got a choice of C++ or BASIC. I started the program in C++, but we could change it."

Turlough shook his head. "I don't know the difference. You choose."

Sarah Jane opened the C++ console and shifted so that he could sit beside her.

"This should do." He intertwined his fingers and stretched his arms. "Let's write a program from scratch that's more complex than anything your small primitive planet has ever seen before in a language I don't even know. Ouch. Why'd you step on me?"

"I happen to like my small, primitive planet. Well, not the small part at the moment."

"But you admit it is primitive," Turlough announced triumphantly, before returning to the screen. "We do have a problem. Your planet has barely started on the science of biometrics. We can't pull formatting or codes from existing sources."

She'd thought about that. "We'll have to hard-code it. It only has to work once. When this problem comes around again, he'll be free and there will be a different solution."

"After all the loops we set up for Avenir, we must be experts by now. Set him free, he sets himself free before you can get there, and someone else ends up trapped." He grabbed one of her programming manuals and started studying the syntax.

"Hopefully the woman currently trapped in the TARDIS up there." She pointed at the sky. "But I'm assuming he has a companion along. If she's modern day, and she's the one trapped-"

Turlough didn't look up. "-her younger self can unlock the Pandorica in this time. Though it seems cruel to do this to the universe twice."

"Maybe we won't. If he's not in the Pandorica, he might be able to stop the TARDIS from exploding."

Turlough reached for the keyboard and started typing. "So many possibilities. So few answers."

"Would you rather trust his escape to an unaided paradox?"

"I'd much rather be doing something. Whether or not it works. Take a look at this code." He leaned back in his chair so she could look over his shoulder.

She did as he asked, then took the keyboard, corrected some punctuation and added the next bit of programming.

They spent the evening in companionable chat, taking turns at the keyboard and bickering over how to encode the various bits of data.

* * *

"What time is it?" Sarah Jane blinked and stretched.

Turlough glanced at the clock on her desk. "After two. But I think we may be done. Shall I start the compiler?" The desk and workspace were strewn with the refuse from their dinner and empty cups that had once held tea.

"Go for it." Sarah Jane got up and started collecting the trash. It would take at least a half an hour to run, and that was after she'd modified it. Once more she found herself cursing the limits of present day Earth technology.

By this time they were both too drained to talk, so they just sat and waited.

"No errors," Turlough finally said.

"Good." Sarah Jane removed the cassette tape from the drive and inserted it in their gadget. "Now let's hope it works."

* * *

"This place is a little spooky at night. Especially those Daleks," Turlough observed.

"You get used to it, except for the Daleks. Do you want to do the honours?"

"You did most of the work." Turlough leaned against the wall while Sarah Jane took a deep breath and pressed the button. They both found themselves blinking at the light as the Pandorica opened.

"Oh, hello. I wasn't expecting a rescue party." The Doctor stood unsteadily and looked around. "What happened?"

"Where do you want me to start?" Sarah Jane snapped. "Your TARDIS seems to have replaced the sun, which is just as well, because all the stars have gone out."

The Doctor frowned. "And you somehow remembered enough to build something that would mimic my DNA well enough to fool the Pandorica's lock."

"We don't have time to discuss what I do and don't remember."

"I'll take that as a yes." He scanned the box with his sonic screwdriver and frowned again. "There has to be a way out. There's always a way out."

"Why don't you just jump in with both feet like you normally do, and figure out a plan as you go along?" Sarah asked sweetly.

"Said the pot to the kettle. I gather _your_ plan didn't get any further than open the Pandorica. I think I need Amy. And River. Which means a time machine."

Sarah Jane reached for the case by the side of the Pandorica. She was barely able to lift it, which was why she had left it here when the museum had closed, explaining to the guard that it was scientific equipment and using lots of long words that didn't make any sense. Funny how far that particular excuse got her around here. "One time machine. Very primitive. I've got it to send me back a whole day, but then I don't have a power source yet."

He looked at her suspiciously. "This world doesn't discover a practical form of time travel for another thirteen hundred years. I don't know how you managed-"

"Someone had to. This timeline is a dead end. It's actually quite freeing not to worry about such things." She tried to sound sarcastic, but feared it just came out as tired.

The Doctor tapped her on the nose. "Keep doing what you're doing. I've got a vortex manipulator waiting for me, so this only has to work once."

"I love ontological paradoxes." The words dripped with sarcasm.

He laughed at that. "It shouldn't affect your memories of this conversation."

"This reality is so ephemeral that nothing could do that. Even if you rewrite it to free yourself and keep the loop intact." Sarah Jane looked up into his eyes. "What do you need me to do?"

"Keep messing with time travel. Keep telling stories. Remember. And find Amy Pond." The Doctor studied her. "She may not be born yet. But you'll want to be in Leadworth in 1996."

Sarah Jane stared. "Leadworth, 1996. I've been there before. The last time the stars went out."

The Doctor froze. "And where were you on 26th June 2010?"

"Still there. There's a reason 2012 sticks in human consciousness. But I don't remember that date being significant. I only know 22nd April 1996 _because_ that's the date we solved the theorem. Once. The date shifted after that. But these things echo through time. Usually. In this timeline, it's more like a drum circle."

"Time remembers what's significant. You and your two companions."

"Three."

"There were two originally," he insisted.

"Sometimes time remembers the rewritten version. Look at Disney." Sarah Jane grimaced at him. 'We prefer the version with four of us, so we've taken steps."

The Doctor nodded and reached for the device, but stopped to look at her. "Was Amy there?"

"I had four kids in my class at the end." She closed her eyes and recited. "Vaughn Pearson, Josh Townsend, Martha Jones, Amy Pond."

"Martha? My Martha?"

"Your Martha, your Amy, Ace worked at Pearadyne, Temporal echoes go both ways, Doctor." She shrugged. "This timeline is very close to that one. Trying to force the same fix again, I imagine."

'That may be what saves us all," he replied. "If you get them back-"

"I'll tell them stories of the stars. We'll keep this world together until you can figure out a way to save it. Now go."

He went.

* * *

"He didn't see you."

"I'm the Herald's Shadow, remember. You and Victor and the unseen third." Turlough studied the now closed Pandorica.

"And Sarah Lynch Pearson."

"How could I forget my favourite ontological paradox? Though if he can pull this off, I'll rate it a close second." He reached over and pushed a bit of hair out of her eyes.

Sarah smiled at him, before walking back to the Pandorica and scanning it with her makeshift sonic screwdriver. "Female, one heart. I think we've got us an Amy Pond."

He grinned. "And now it's back to where it all began. Do we kill some time here first? Or follow the story as written?"

"I rather fancy the latter. Scandal with my intern causing shock, horror and my dismissal. And I shall retreat to Leadworth where I'll start writing children's books and teach at the local school." Sarah Jane gave him an impish smile.

"And I can get a job at Pearadyne. Or just let you support me in the manner to which I've become accustomed."

"I'd prefer the former, if you don't mind. You're impossible to live with when you've got nothing to do."

He pouted, but acquiesced. "I assume we begin our torrid affair tomorrow. You'll want to get your equipment out of the museum first."

"Sounds like a plan." She smiled at him. "You are of legal age on Trion, aren't you? I always lose track."

He smirked.


	3. The Story in Your Eyes

> But I'm frightened for the children  
> And that the life that we are living is in vain  
> And the sunshine we've been waiting for  
> Will turn to rain  
> - _The Story in Your Eyes_ , The Moody Blues

 _1994_

"How much longer do we wait, Vincent? Until the world has shrunk to Leadworth and the National Museum? Until the morning you wake up and not only is Sarah not by your side, but you don't even remember that she existed," Sarah Jane snapped at Victor. "What's the point of inventing time travel then? Are we just another memory that was strong enough to remain in a world that shouldn't exist? Earth barely has a past, let alone a future."

"Do you think I don't worry about that, SJ?" Victor glanced over at Vaughn, who was playing video games and taking no notice of the adults. These fights were all too common when this group got together for dinner. "I agree. We should do something. But remember the damage to the timeline the last time we built a time machine. You kept that technology from me for a reason."

"What reason?" Sarah Jane threw up her hands. "There was no accident at Pearadyne. Sarah's sitting right there, the one echo of a future that will never happen. We've had a reprieve from the death of the universe, but we'll lose that soon too."

"She does have a point, Victor. The reasons she built the time machine and you stole it have been erased. This isn't even an alternate timeline, just the shadow of one." Sarah laid a hand on her husband's shoulder. "We're all going stir crazy here. A goal might help."

"Didn't you use alien technology last time? Or not? I suppose you have cobbled things together from Earth technology before." Turlough cast a worried glance in Sarah Jane's direction. "There was never even a space program here. Too controversial, and as far as I know, besides the fossilized Daleks in the museum, I'm the only alien left. Besides him. Unless something happened to him. That time machine of yours was _very_ primitive."

'Don't say that, Vislor. There are two. There have to be." Sarah Jane's eyes drifted up to the ceiling. They'd closed the drapes, and none of them liked to look at the sky at night. "Either he's up there, caught in that explosion, or-"

"Or he's in the Pandorica with Amy Pond. Schroedinger's cat. And we can't open the box." Victor started pacing.

"Amy can. It's sealed biometrically," Sarah replied. "Everything happens for a reason. Why are certain things remembered and others forgotten? When we figure that out, we might get somewhere."

"Amy Pond," Sarah Jane said softly. "Six years old. She'll be in my class this year. She's already quite well known in town for her stories."

"Well, if she remembers, we're all set then." Turlough leaned back against the sofa, a crooked smile crossing his face before it disappeared. "But back to the time machine. Details, SJ. It isn't practical to travel through time here, the way the world is slipping away."

"If I can build a vortex manipulator it will be better than the hotchpotch I built in 1985 - it's not the most efficient of time travel devices, but it will enable me to travel in space too."

"And through the explosion up there," Victor said thoughtfully. "You think this Doctor of yours needs rescuing? You are certain that it's his ship that's taken the place of the sun?"

"Yes and yes. Can Pearadyne build parts for me?"

"Based on the limits of current technology, yes," Sarah answered for her husband. "I don't know if that will be enough."

"The science on this world is a complete and utter paradox," Sarah Jane pointed out. "No space exploration, but the benefits thereof. When I studied physics at Uni, we were taught formulas and principles that couldn't possibly work in this reality. It's a world built on memories of the real world and I'm going to use that to my advantage. I've got Amy in my class now and the curriculum of the school is about to change."

"The parents will complain." Victor didn't sound like he minded this much.

"They can't fire me now. Only you can do that. I may be blackballed from scientific journals, but that isn't where I need to be right now. And you can just tell them I'm 'encouraging their creativity'. They need to know that the stories they tell have truth in them. And the first think I need is a packet of gold stars." Sarah Jane grinned triumphantly. "Greek myths, legends, stories of Earth that was. Gagarin, Armstrong, Sputnik. I've got so many stories to tell them, and I'm sure they'll have stories to tell me too. And together we'll build a vortex manipulator. Though we'll tell the parents it's an art project."

"This might work." Victor finally stopped pacing and studied her. "All my readings say we have less than a year. However fast or slow that time may pass."

"You're sure this isn't an echo of the last time the stars went out?" Sarah asked. "We had more time then."

"I'm sure. I checked and double-checked the readings, and then had Turlough check them too." Victor drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. We're not going to make it to 2012. We won't even make it to 1997."

"We've had less time to save the world before." Sarah Jane suddenly looked tired. "We've been spoilt by the long game we've been playing with Avenir and with the Crimson Chapter. At least we don't have to live through those specific choices- and those mistakes again this time around."

Turlough leaned over and placed a hand on her shoulder. "And as much as I hate being stuck on Earth, there are compensations. But we'd best get you home to bed. First day of school in the morning, and it's going to be a doozy."

Sarah smiled up at him. "Thanks for dinner. See you tomorrow, Vaughn."

"Are you going to be my teacher?" the boy asked. "You won't make me read, will you?"

"There might be some reading, but I promise to tell lots of stories." Sarah Jane shook his hand gravely. "And I bet you'll make some friends."

"Thanks for dinner, it was lovely as always," Turlough said to Sarah as he drew Sarah Jane towards the door.

"We need each other, the four of us," Victor replied. "And the universe remembers that, even if it's slowly forgetting everything else."

Despite everything, four sets of eyes were drawn up to the blank canvas of the sky. Turlough had already turned on his torch. They were only two houses down the road, but there was a new moon tonight and the way home would be dark, without even the reflected glow of the exploding TARDIS to light their way. He felt Sarah Jane shiver, though she said nothing, and wrapped his arm about her. One way or another, this would all be over soon.

* * *

Funny, what the universe thought was important, Sarah thought as she set up the classroom. Mythology stripped bare. Back to a school and to the four of them and to a crisis that echoed the first one.

Despite the threat, she found herself whistling. She hadn't expected to like teaching. When she'd started, there had been enough kids that she could teach science at the high school. Ace had been one of her first pupils. Now she was teaching a mixed group of six to eight year olds in a school that echoed with too many empty rooms. Other communities' buildings would have shrunk along with the world and the population, but this was Leadworth, the most real place left in the universe.

And that, perhaps, was why when the only continent left was Europe, Victor had landed here, Blake Holsey High mapping to the Leadworth village school.

She checked the class roster again, though there were less than two dozen names written there and she'd memorized them long ago. Eight new kids. Amy Pond was the important one. Some of the rest would disappear over the course of the year, as would some of the older ones. She'd learnt to check the roster every day rather than trusting her memory; the cost of being aware of the flaws in reality was that the four of them didn't always notice when things changed.

The bell rang and children tumbled into the bright classroom. Sarah Jane pasted on a smile and picked up the roster. Once they were sitting quietly, it would be time to begin.

* * *

Amy was confused. Shouldn't Miss Martin be her teacher this year? But, as so many things confused her about the world, she just shrugged and moved on. It wasn't as though she didn't like Ms Smith. Some of the other kids didn't, cause she talked so much about the stars and told stories that weren't in their history books. They got the uncomfortable look that Amy's Aunt got when Amy told her about her dreams. Some of them transferred to the other class and others just weren't there any more after a time.

To Amy's surprise, she quickly made friends with the rest. The ones who sat, silent and enraptured, when Ms. Smith told myths about the constellations and who jumped at the frequent chances to tell their own stories about other worlds.

Amy quickly learnt not to tell her Aunt what they were really learning at school. Every time she mentioned the stars, it meant a psychologist and that worried look. But if she couldn't talk about them at home, she had Ms Smith and school to look forward to.

* * *

 _1996_

There were four kids in Amy's class now, but somehow she thought there should have been more. Ms Smith had planned a trip to the National Museum on Monday and Amy couldn't wait. Her Aunt had promised to give her money to buy the newest Orphans of the Future book and she'd get to see the Pandorica for herself.

She entered the classroom as usual on Friday, eager to tell her latest star story. Ms Smith was wiring something on the arm piece she was making. It looked almost like a sleeve, but it strapped on to her arm, and she claimed it was a time machine. Amy wasn't sure whether this was real or another story, but she'd decided it didn't really matter.

The others were already there, Martha, Josh and Vaughn. Just the four of them and Ms Smith, in a classroom large enough to hold more.

"Ah. Here you are, Amy." Ms Smith smiled at her and she smiled back.

"Sorry, my Aunt stopped to take a call."

"It's okay, the bell is just about to ring. Now." The bell rang on cue, and Ms Smith gestured that they should find their seats in the circle. Not for the first time, she stumbled over the roster, calling out the names of two people who weren't in their class, before catching herself and moving on. Like Amy, she remembered people who weren't in their class.

Amy handed in her permission slip for the trip, along with the others.

"I think we're up to Prometheus. Does anyone remember who he is?"

"He's the guy who was imprisoned with birds eating his liver, right?" Vaughn asked.

"That's the one. Do you know why he was imprisoned? It was for helping mankind." And she told them the story of how he stole fire from the gods for use by men. She'd always liked Prometheus.


	4. The Best of Times

> Tonight's the night we'll make history, honey, you and I  
> Cause I'll take any risk to tie back the hands of time  
> And stay with you here tonight  
> I know you feel these are the worst of times  
> I do believe it's true  
> When people lock their doors and hide inside  
> Rumor has it it's the end of Paradise  
> - _The Best of Times_ , Styx

The Doctor appeared just outside the gift shop and wobbled a minute before catching his balance. Time was all wrong. He hadn't been sure when he set the vortex manipulator how far into the future he'd get, but had hoped that Amy's memories would at least retain the bits she had been a part of. It seemed to have worked.

The museum was full of people. Were there fewer than normal? Was it smaller? He pushed that thought to the back of his head and turned to inquire of the nearest person what year it was. But the words froze on his lips as he caught sight of a display at the entrance to the gift shop. A coffee table book: _Pandorica _and stacks of copies of various volumes of the Orphans of the Future series, with a poster announcing a signing by the author, Lavinia Smith, at 11am on 20th April and suggesting reserving a copy of _Against the Fall of Night_ , the latest book in her best-selling series, because quantities would be limited.__

He picked up the coffee table book and skimmed through it in a matter of seconds. A compendium of fact, legend and lore of the trap that had been set for him. The introduction was by a man named Victor Pearson. Something about that name rang a bell, but he couldn't place it, so he tucked the reference into the back of his mind.

A glance at his watch proved that there wasn't enough time left for it to work properly, so he turned to ask of the nearest passer-by what year it was.

"1996. Not many time travellers in this universe," the man noted lazily.

"Turlough. You shouldn't be here."

"This isn't a timeline. It's a memory of a timeline. Turlough leaned against the window of the shop and studied the Doctor. "You're giving me flashbacks to the masters at St Brendan's. Not good, Doctor." After a moment he continued, "The universe remembers the last time the stars went out. As far as we can tell, it's trying to recreate that solution."

The Doctor started to say something and then stopped. "Time travel was discovered on Earth in response to one of Rassilon's early attempts to harness the power of a black hole. Stars collapsed like dominoes, a chain reaction throughout the universe and Earth only lasted as long as it did _because_ it was a backwater."

"I know all of this. I was there." Turlough snapped. "Reality's so thin here that the four of us all remember enough to know that this isn't the first time we've played these parts."

"The four? There were three. Pearson, Smith and an unnamed third collaborator." The Doctor stared at his old friend intently. "Except I just had this conversation with Sarah Jane and she said four too. Very firmly."

"There are some things that can't be unwritten easily. And that particular paradox has been deliberately reinforced to stabilise the history of time travel on this planet." He gestured over to a table where a bald man was talking to a blonde woman. "Victor and Sarah Pearson. Sarah Jane wandered off to take a few more readings of the Pandorica and watch for Amy Pond, but she'll be back soon."

"I don't have time to wait for her." The Doctor suddenly realised that he was still holding the book and put it back on the display.

Turlough nodded. "You'd best get to it, then. Artron energy is dissipating at an alarming rate, to the point where SJ's not sure her signing will take place tomorrow as planned. I'll let the others know you're here."

"Sarah Jane?" He turned to ask the other man, but he'd already gone, caught up in the crowd. His eyes drifted to the other books on the table. Illustrated by Brendan Sarn. Interesting. He could have sworn that was Turlough's work. But he was well aware of his limited time. It was time to go find Amy. He entered the coordinates and disappeared.

* * *

"It wasn't your handwriting," Amy said before digging in to the burger and chips that Sarah Jane had brought her.

The years had dulled the scandal she and Turlough had manufactured, and in 1990, the museum had waved a lot of money at her to return for lectures. This was handy, as it meant that no one paid attention when she passed through doors marked 'no admittance'. "No, it wasn't. But you should do as it says anyway. It's very important." Sarah Jane leaned back and sipped her tea, wishing, not for the first time, that peppermint tea had the tannins that kept her brain focused. But she couldn't afford to be dealing with the sudden overwhelming mental shifts between alternate timelines today.

"Why?" Amy asked through a mouthful of chips.

"If it works, maybe the stars will come back." Sarah Jane sincerely hoped so. "Something got broken and we need your help to fix it."

"Like in your books?" Amy had spent the school year reading through the novels Sarah Jane had written for kids. "I forgot. That's a secret."

"Not now that the series is finished. I've got that signing tomorrow." Barbara had twisted her arm, and she hadn't had a good reason to refuse. "And yes, it's exactly like my books." Sarah Jane finished her tea and studied Amy gravely. "Will you be okay here? I have some other things to take care of."

"What about Aunt Sharon? She'll be worried."

"Don't worry about that. What you're doing here is much more important. Trust me." She glanced at her watch. "I may see you later, and if I don't, trust the madman with the bow-tie. He's a very good friend of mine."

"Yes, Ms Smith," Amy replied obediently.

As Sarah Jane withdrew from Amy's hiding place, she wished she hadn't had to involve an eight-year-old. But time and the universe hadn't given her a choice in the matter.

* * *

"I saw him. He's gone tweed of all things." Turlough made this sound like a personal affront.

"You didn't notice that earlier?"

"I was lurking. In the shadows. Where one is supposed to lurk." He looked hurt. "Also that bright light made it hard to see anything. Is Amy ready?"

"Yeah." Sarah Jane rubbed her temples. "And have I mentioned how much I hate moving people around like chess pieces?"

"Constantly. Except when you're objecting to setting up events like a game of dominion. But you didn't put her there, the Doctor did."

"I know. Let's find the others and make sure we're ready for tonight."

* * *

"Here, let me help you up." The voice was familiar, even if her face was hidden by the cloak she was wearing.

The Doctor's eyes dropped to the pendant she was wearing. "I didn't think anyone was left."

"I'm a legend, remember. The Herald of the Orbus Postremo, the near legendary founder of the Order of Observers. Time has to work very hard to forget me; and if I must dress the part, it's a small price to pay." Hands reached up to push the hood back, revealing Sarah Jane's face. "The other three have been forgotten, though." He heard the quiver in her voice. "I'm the last memory of a dying universe. Which means we don't have much time left. What's the plan? I do hope you've come up with one. You had plenty of time with all that running."

"I'm going to wire this," he gestured at the vortex manipulator, "into the Pandorica. Drag it into the explosion. It captured the building blocks of the old universe and it can rebuild it."

She helped him to his feet, and let him lean on her as they made their way to the Pandorica. "Reboot the universe. Clever. But it will only work if the TARDIS is still exploding and the cycles are minimal at this point. We don't have much time."

The Doctor nodded. "Once I pulled River out of the time loop, the cycle started degenerating much more quickly."

Sarah Jane let go of him long enough to push back the sleeve of her robe, revealing what might have been an ancient predecessor of the wristband the Doctor wore. It covered her entire forearm from just above her wrist to just below her elbow.

"Sarah, you invented the _theory_ of time travel," the Doctor protested. "And yet even with minimal supplies, you can build one in 1985 and then go from that to the prototype of the one I'm wearing in a little over a decade?"

"Are you accusing me of being an overachiever? Because that's hardly a criticism." She let her sleeve drop and gave him her arm again. "The practical version won't happen in this universe at all. We've got a matter of hours. Besides, the version of history in which no one actually built a time machine until the 35th century hasn't existed for a long time. Nor was it the _original_ timeline. Usually this happens much later and I have access to alien tech. Still, this should do the job. You wire yourself into the Pandorica; let me deal with the TARDIS. If I go up there, it should trigger the time loop again and give you a longer window." Sarah Jane helped him settle down in the Pandorica. "Do you have your sonic screwdriver?"

He waved it at her and started work on the wiring. "I can't ask you to do this. Not after the last time. If time forgets you-."

"If time forgets you, we're in just as bad a mess. I've tried to drop some triggers in Amy's memory and my legend will survive if I don't." She reached up and tucked something in the inside pocket of his jacket. "And if you survive, this will. Don't you forget me, Doctor."

"Don't you forget me, Sarah Jane." He nearly choked on what had gone from an excuse not to say good-bye to something with infinitely more meaning and turned back to his wiring,

Sarah Jane retrieved the case she'd tucked behind the TARDIS, pushed her sleeve up again and pressed a button. In order to make it something she could actually wear and that would transport her in space as well as time, she'd had to make sacrifices so the coordinates were hard-wired in. She'd known all along this would be a one way trip.

* * *

The loop she found herself caught in lasted thirty seconds, maybe less. But her presence here would insure that it wouldn't shrink.

It took her a few repeats to realise what was wrong. She and the Doctor had assumed that the reason the explosion hadn't reached Earth was because of the loop, but that was just part of the problem. The blast shields had been triggered.

"He's got a plan. I'm going to need your help here. It might degenerate the loop, but I need to be on the other side of the console. And I don't know if I can both get to it and switch it off in the time allotted. I need you to break the loop just long enough for me to get to the right panel," she told the TARDIS. It was a knack, using a time loop to one's advantage, but she'd had a lot of practice. This time she allowed her body to follow the allotted path, while she spoke, knowing she had to fit it into the loop.

It worked. This time she was aware of the moment when the loop restarted. Not long, but enough to take a step in the right direction. One second off, twenty-eight on. The TARDIS even provided a counter on the viewscreen. The one second off would be remembered when the loop started again. The rest would not, but she could still work in that time.

She unscrewed the plate and inspected the wires. She'd have multiple chances to get the wiring right, as long as she didn't take too long. And she could use the restart to her advantage - to erase mistakes.

The first time through, she barely got the wires unhooked before the timer jumped back to twenty-eight. The next time, she did a little better. Around the fifth iteration she noticed that the counter was now starting at twenty-seven. She cursed mentally. "Drop the interval. Just loop." That gave her twenty-eight seconds again, but she knew the safety mechanism couldn't run forever. She had to do this perfectly in twenty-eight seconds to make it work, and she had to do it before the Doctor brought the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion.

But that was a false deadline. Once it came close enough, it would be caught in the loop too, and she just needed to get the shields down once to allow it in.

She almost made it the next time through, but dropped a wire. The next time she grabbed the wrong one. If she got through this, she'd never complain about rewiring a circuit board again.

Blue first, then red, then white and green, and purple and- restart.

Blue, red, white, green, purple, orange, yellow, black, turquoise, chartreuse. Button!

Sarah Jane might have felt the impact, or only dreamed it. The world ended in a blinding flash of light.

* * *

Sarah Jane Smith woke with a start. After checking to make sure all of her parts were there, she considered her surroundings.

Earth. The sun was shining through her bedroom window. Could it really be that simple?

"Luke, do you have money for lunch? And the fun fair?" She could hear herself downstairs calling to her son. Not at all simple, then. A week ago, was her first thought, and then she had to focus to sort out what day she thought it was. 26th June, 2010. She could feel the tugging already as her timeline unravelled. The room blurred and disappeared.

* * *

She landed next in a hospital in London, outside Sir Donald's room as Josh Townsend approached.

"Josh," she called.

He half-turned, and she could tell he almost heard her. That was a good sign. All it would take was the right word in the right ear. She only needed one person to remember her to bring her back.

The scenes followed in quick succession. That awful moment on Bannerman Road, when the previous Doctor had saved Luke's life, and she'd known he was saying good-bye. She tried whispering in his ear, as he waved at her other self and her son from a distance, but he didn't hear. His life would be unravelling too.

Her last visit to Trion. And then Canada. And then she found herself standing in Duke Giuliano's chamber. As she had done, completing the loop that resulted in the creation of the Book of Tomorrows. She almost laughed with relief.

Instead she spent the night telling the sleeping man stories, knowing he was already inclined to write them down. Leaving hints and clues for those that would follow and guard the book. There was no way to prevent its bloody history; that had already been written, but as long as that book existed, she would not be forgotten. That was the original purpose of the Book of Tomorrows- to protect her timeline and each loop and paradox reinforced it and it would serve her once again.

When dawn came, she saw the crack on the far wall. "It's time, then. The cracks won't close until we're both on the other side. But you'll tell the story, and someday someone will remember and bring me back across." She pulled her hood back over her head, brushed a hand across the place where her pendant had been, and stepped into the light.


	5. Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)

> Now I understand what you tried to say to me  
> How you suffered for you sanity How you tried to set them free  
> They would not listen they did not know how, perhaps they'll listen now  
> - _Vincent_ , Don McLean

Amy and Rory were still upstairs changing out of their wedding attire and the Doctor could hear Amy singing in the distance. " _Starry, starry night. Paint your palette blue and grey_ -" He'd already changed and right now he was more concerned about the odd readings he was getting than what was taking his companions so long. "Come on, beautiful. You're not going to let a little thing like your own destruction scramble your circuits now. Ah, there we go. As pretty a landing as ever," he added as he picked himself up off the floor.

"Are we there yet?" Amy called as she came rushing down the stairs, Rory in tow.

"The Orient Express," The Doctor threw open the door and frowned. "Or not. Apparently the TARDIS decided to make a stop." He glanced around. "Bannerman Road. I've been here before. I think. I feel like I've forgotten something." He left the TARDIS without explaining, knowing they would follow him anyway. "Have I forgotten something?"

"Forgotten what?" Amy appeared at his right arm as he studied a brick wall.

"13 Bannerman Road." He grimaced at her, then started up the drive, absently scanning things as he went. "Ordinary street, ordinary house. Why does that feel wrong? Something's missing here."

"Is something wrong?" Rory asked as the Doctor rang the bell. It was opened by a tall black man in his mid-forties.

The Doctor flashed his psychic paper. "Hullo, you haven't noticed anything strange recently?"

"I can't say that I have. Except for you." The man closed the door firmly.

The Doctor glared at the door and then at his sonic screwdriver which was showing perfectly normal readings, before meandering back to the TARDIS, the other two in tow. He finally answered Rory's question. "I'm not sure yet. History should have been put back just the way it was, but there's an anomaly."

"But you _said_ that I'd remember everything back the way it was - even the people who were erased. I even brought _you_ back." Amy looked clearly upset.

The Doctor turned and tapped her on the nose. "I don't think this was your fault. I don't even remember what's wrong. I just know that something is. I think someone got trapped on the other side of the crack. Someone else should be living in that house."

"And even you don't remember who?" Rory asked incredulously.

"I only know that much because the TARDIS brought us here- presumably because there's something wrong. The rest I've deduced." He led them back into the TARDIS and closed the doors.

"I brought you back, Doctor." Amy laid a hand on top of his. "We can do this one together."

He tapped her on the nose again. "I'll hold you to that."

"What's going on here? Josh? Where are we?" A woman's voice came from behind him. Inside the TARDIS. That couldn't be right.

The Doctor spun around to see that four people had followed him into the TARDIS.  
"Luke? Clyde? What are you doing here?"

* * *

Nat Redfern was bewildered. Not only did she not remember why she'd agreed to come to Ealing with Josh, but she also didn't understand why he'd felt the need to follow the two boys they'd been speaking to into a tiny blue box. Except the box wasn't tiny at all. She stopped her wheelchair just inside the door and stared.

"Ah. You'll have to forgive me. I'm fond of stairs, but I know not everyone agrees with me. Matter of taste that." As he chattered he flipped a few switches on a central console and suddenly the stairs shifted to become ramps. "You should be able to get around better now. Never know when that will help."

"You aren't the Doctor." Clyde was frowning at the strange man with the bow tie. "We need to talk to him."

"He changes," Luke replied. "I think."

" _Are_ you the Doctor?" Clyde asked as the man gave them a jaunty smile. "You don't look like him."

"Are you the Clyde who helped defeat the Trickster with a well timed blast of artron energy?" He didn't give Clyde a chance to answer before turning to Luke. "Are we missing something? Someone?"

"Rani's off shopping with her parents. It's just the two of us today," Luke replied as though he was following the conversation. Nat certainly wasn't. "But I feel like there's something else I've forgotten. We saw the TARDIS and we knew we had to talk to you."

"Doctor, you're not saying you know these kids?" The red-haired woman was just standing there, glaring at them.

"This might be more urgent. Amy, is there someone else you've forgotten?"

"If I've forgotten them, I'm not likely to remember now, am I?"

Nat thought that made perfect sense. As much as this whole day did, which wasn't saying much.

"Where do you live?" the Doctor suddenly asked Luke.

"He lives- he stayed at my house last night." Clyde's voice faltered.

"I don't remember." Luke frowned at the Doctor. "I think- no, it's gone."

"Next question - how did we meet? I know we've fought the Daleks together and there was that battle with the Trickster, but the details elude me."

Clyde and Luke both looked at him blankly.

Josh was being surprisingly quiet, but he also seemed to be following better. He dropped his backpack on the floor and leaned against one of the walls.

Amy interrupted the conversation when she rounded the console and almost tripped over something. "That wasn't here before." That was a small metal case with a tag on it. "It's not heavy. _For Amy and Rory on their wedding day, lest they forget."_ It's not your handwriting, Doctor."

"No, but it looks familiar, as I if I should know it. Think, Doctor. What have I forgotten?"

"Should we open it?" Rory gave the Doctor a wary look.

"Might be a good idea." The Doctor wandered over to inspect the case. "Palladium. The lightest metal. It has some very strange temporal properties. Often used to protect objects from being rewritten with shifts in the timeline."

Rory knelt and opened the catches to reveal a stack of books. Children's books. "A very strange wedding present. Does whoever left them for us expect us to save them for our children?"

"Could it have been River?" Amy said, as she examined the books. "No, she wouldn't have had a chance. Don't you recognise these, Rory?" She waved one of them at her new husband almost gleefully. "The Orphans of the Future series. From the world with no stars. How did these get here?"

 _That_ got a reaction out of Josh and he knelt down beside Amy. "I dreamed the stars went out. Last night. Is your name Amy Pond? I'm Josh Townsend."

She looked up at him sharply. "I remember you. We were in the same class in school."

"You were. How remarkable?" He suddenly seemed to remember Nat and turned to ask, "Were you there too?"

"I have no idea who you all are or what's going on here." And she wasn't sure she wanted to know either.

"But you do feel like there's something missing from your memory. Sorry. I'm the Doctor, these are Amy Pond and Rory Williams. And I'm very curious as to why you'd be dreaming you were in Leadworth," he said to Josh before turning back to Amy. "And about these books, The Orphans of the Future. There is or will be a real, semi-religious organisation of that name. Well, there were several organisations with that name, but only one of any significance. Very instrumental in controlling access to time travel on Earth until you people get a handle on the consequences and can be trusted not to write yourselves out of existence." He paused. "But they're a mystery. Organisations with the same trappings spontaneously evolve on two other disparate planets - Gallifrey and Trion."

"Like the Pandorica? A manufactured myth?" Rory wondered.

"But unlike the Pandorica, it only appears in those three cultures. And I have a feeling I once knew why. Somebody left us a clue. Rory, they sold these in the museum shop, didn't they? I think I remember a sign about an author appearance."

Rory stared at him. "I remember seeing them, but I never thought much of it. So many people wrote stories based on myths of the Pandorica." He glanced at the book in his hand and froze. The cover showed a centurion, a girl with red hair and a blond man in a cricket outfit. They could just make out a hooded figure and a corner of the Pandorica in the background. " _The Paradox Trap_ ," he read a little incredulously.

"Hmm. Mixing time periods there. But maybe that was deliberate. I remember seeing the notice of a signing in the shop." The Doctor snatched it out of Rory's hands, and examined the title page. "By Lavinia Smith, illustrated by Brendan Sarn."

"You've lost me, Doctor," Rory said.

"My teacher wrote these. It was supposed to be a secret," Amy said absently. She was sitting on the floor sifting through the books.

"Miss Martin?" Rory asked. "I can't imagine her sitting still long enough to write anything."

"Not Miss Martin. I don't remember her name." Amy glanced at Josh who shook his head to confirm that he didn't remember either. "She did a contest to choose names to use and I was one of the kids who won. Josh too. And Vaughn and Martha. I don't know how she chose the others, but the stories added a Rory, a Charley and a Josie, along the line and they weren't in our class." Amy went very still. "In the stories Rory was linked to the Centurion, and on the day you left me tickets for the museum, there _were_ only four kids in my class. The four I listed."

"Now that's interesting." The Doctor flipped the book in his hands over and read the back. "Amy loves the stars. But scientists say they're disappearing, and no one knows why. One day she leaves her homework at school and persuades her friends, Martha and Josie, to go with her to retrieve it. While she's there she overhears her mistress talking to the head of the board of governors, and not about school. Are they the cause of the missing stars or are they trying to save the Earth? Who is the mysterious man with the blue box? And what is Rassilon and why do they consider it a threat? The first book in an exciting new series." He frowned at it . "Hints, indeed. Muddled bits of history that only a few people know about. And definite links to Gallifrey."

"This was my favourite." Amy looked at it as if it were going to bite her, before passing it to the Doctor. "About Van Gogh. How could she have known?"

" _Starry Night_. But he isn't working on Starry Night, he's working on the picture that sent us hunting for the Pandorica, the one of the TARDIS exploding," The Doctor dropped down on his knees beside Amy, Luke and Clyde. "Let me see the others. _Dark Night on Skaro_ , _Flight of the Dauntless_ , _The Shape of Things to Come_ , _Silent Running_ , _Fear in a Handful of Dust_. _Book of Tomorrows_. _The Girl Who Never Was_ , _The Game of Rassilon_ , _Against the Fall of Night_." He arranged them in order by the numbers on the spines and then rearranged them, frowned, and rearranged them again. "They're out of order, but the woman who wrote these knew Earth history backwards, forwards and sideways. And more than a little about Gallifreyan history too"

"Sideways?" Clyde asked.

The Doctor studied him a moment before explaining. "Temporal shifts, rewritten history. Whoever wrote these, and I don't think Lavinia Smith is the author's real name, knew that there had been other timelines, back to the first time the stars went out. There are only three who could possibly remember that. And Rassilon. But I know it wasn't him."

"Like the fossilized Dalek," Rory said.

"More like you - the you in that world. You were still an Auton, but unlike the Dalek you continued to function as though the earlier history was still in effect." The Doctor stood abruptly and started pacing, nearly tripping over Luke who had picked up the first book and started reading. "She- or he- wrote what she remembered. What had been forgotten. The birth of the Daleks, the end of the Time War, Dust, the year Martha Jones spent running from the Master."

"Martha Jones. That was her name," Josh said softly. "Not in the books, but the girl in my class."

Nat wondered what he was thinking. He'd been unusually subdued since they'd entered the TARDIS. Usually he was all bluster, especially when the Orbus Postremo came up.

"Of course it was. I don't know a Vaughn, though." The Doctor turned and dropped back down to look at her. "But it can't be coincidence. I think she chose your name to make sure you read them and remembered."

Amy scrunched up her face and tried to remember. "Vaughn Pearson. He was the son of the head of the board of of governors. In the book too, though again she changed the last name."

"This book was dedicated to The Pearsons," Luke offered, without looking up. "And it's weird. The formulas are all correct. And not things you'd run across in an ordinary science textbook."

The Doctor stared. "Pearson. I was trying to remember that name but I didn't know why. In the legends, either three or four people worked together to discover the formulas that govern time travel and no names are named, but it's called the Pearson-Smith theorem, so there must have been a Pearson and a Smith. Tell me about the books. I gather they form a series. Episodic or linear?"

"Linear. The first one is sort of a prologue, though. Martha, Josie and Amy figure out that their teacher is trying to save the universe, and team up with Vaughn and his friends Josh and Rory to help. After that, they're told that they've been chosen to save the Earth and sent by the the mysterious Time's Champion with the Doctor in his time machine to aid the Herald and her team help save the Earth."

"The Herald's team?" Nat couldn't help asking. Josh might not willing to talk about the White Chapter, but she wasn't inclined to be so reticent.

To her surprise, Josh was the one who answered, surprisingly carelessly. "Yeah. We had descriptions but not names. Some of the stuff you came up with from the Internet was wrong, and quite deliberately so, but there are descriptions of the 'you'll know them by' type. And I'm pretty certain they're the ones who've gone missing."

The Doctor looked sharply at Josh. "Most people think that Earth's legends of the Herald started during the diaspora. I hadn't realised the organisation existed this far back."

"How else can we protect them?" Josh countered defensively.

"I'm not the enemy, Josh. I'm not sure there is an enemy in this. What we need to do is fetch out what we've forgotten." The Doctor turned back to Amy. "Go on. No wait. Time's Champion is Ace McShane. Do the books ever mention the Herald's name? Probably not," he answered himself. "They've spent a long time deliberately obscuring their identities."

"And if she were afraid names would be forgotten," Rory said slowly, "the author might not attach a name, for fear it would be erased."

"I forgot Rory because he was a part of my personal timeline. My teacher is just a shadowy picture in my head, but I remember the stories of the Herald clearly," Amy added. "So they go with the Doctor in his blue box. Bigger on the inside, of course. Their first mission, _The Girl Who Never Was_ , involves the crash of a dirigible in 1919 and Charley Pollard joins the team."

The Doctor nodded. "Of course. I'm seeing a pattern here. Charley also travelled with me once."

"How many companions have you had?" Clyde blurted out. Then, "And how many are mentioned in these books. It's like whoever wrote them was writing them for you."

"More than I care to count. And I suspect, judging by the names who've popped up, only the ones whose timelines got tangled are being mentioned. So Charley joins the crew. I'm not sure why they chose that incarnation, though." He stared at a drawing of a man in a cricket uniform. "I used to look like that - once."

Nat was confused again, but that was becoming an all too familiar feeling.

"The next three books form the Mandragora trilogy. In _Starry Night_ , they go back in time to meet Van Gogh who is illustrating the diary of an Italian Duke for publication, only for some reason they have to convince him that it can never be published. The journal, called _The Book of Tomorrows_ , is torn apart at the end of the book, its pages strewn through time and they have to collect them in the second book- _The Book of Tomorrows_ , of course. The cliffhanger at the end of that book involves the Herald being shot and killed on a street in Hong Kong. Her absence causes time to start collapsing, which is what the Gallifreyans want, now that the Faction Paradox is in control. Suddenly they're back at school and none of their adventures ever happened."

"But they remember, don't they? They have to," Clyde said impatiently.

Luke grinned at Clyde's enthusiasm. "Next you'll be wanting to read them."

"Or see the films. They're probably better than Harry Potter."

The Doctor looked torn for a moment, then suddenly said, "On my planet, it was said that if you read _The Book of Tomorrows_ , you'd see not only what was written on the page, but, if you could read it properly, you'd see how it had changed as time was overwritten, that if you wrote in it, you could change history and most importantly, that it was forbidden to read - on par with the Black Scrolls of Rassilon. My people had no need of such things, so most disregarded it as a fairy story, but among Trions and Humans, there have always been people who desired its power. Amy? What happens in the next book?"

"They start to remember in _Flight of the Dauntless_. For some reason the Herald has to be there to stop something or cause something to happen, and the kids have to remind her who she is. _Starry Night_ is my- Amy's book, _The Book of Tomorrows_ is Rory's and there's lots in there to tie him to the Centurion who guarded the Pandorica." Amy's eyes widened. "How could the author have known that?"

"The author seems to have known quite a bit about things she shouldn't have. And that may be a clue - especially if she was indeed the Herald. Go on," the Doctor encouraged Amy. "The more we know about what she wrote about, the closer we'll get to finding her."

" _Flight of the Dauntless_ is Josh's book," she continued. "And he's got a special relationship with _The Book of Tomorrows_. By the end of that book, they know there's a war brewing between the Gallifreyans and the Daleks and they join in on the side of the Gallifreyans. Your people."

"Yeah."

Amy continued, " _Dark Night on Skaro_ is the next one, and that's about the creation of the Daleks and the beginnings of the war. In _Fear in a Handful of Dust_ , a group of Gallifreyan collaborators calling themselves the Faction Paradox try to rewrite the Doctor's history. That's continued in _Silent Running_ , in which one of them becomes Prime Minister of Earth, _The Shape of Things to Come_ is almost an interlude. They get back to Earth and have to defeat a human named Avenir, who's noticed a power vacuum due to the war, and is trying to take control of time. There's also a thread in there about rescuing the fourth Guardian from a time trap- Vaughn's mother, Sarah."

"Sarah Pearson." Clyde noted.

" _The Game of Rassilon_ comes after that, and that's where the story starts hinting that the Gallifreyans are-"

"A bit mad. They- we were. But it got worse during the war." The Doctor picked up the last book she mentioned. "The odd thing is that almost none of these events happened during or because of the war. _Dust_ was before, and _The Game of Rassilon_. I'd put _Skaro_ in between those, even though many consider it the opening salvo. The first book is an odd combination of something that happened before and something that happened after. _The Shape of Things to Come_ isn't an event I know anything about, which doesn't necessarily mean anything. _The Girl Who Never Was_ happened right before. _Silent Running_ happens after the war, and I bet it features Martha."

Amy nodded. "It does. She's the one remembers and gets the others to remember. _The Shape of Things to Come_ focuses on Josie and Vaughn, and the others have everyone about evenly."

"So what happens in _The Game of Rassilon_ " Clyde asked. He sounded interested in spite of himself.

"They're trapped in the Death Zone-"

"On Gallifrey. I was there. Multiple times. It's a long story, but I remember it well." The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "You said that it starts hinting that the Time- Gallifreyans have fallen into the 'ends justify the means' trap and become as bad as the Daleks. I take it that leads into _Against the Fall of Night_."

"So it's all about timelines and memory. Clever." Rory looked proud of his ability to figure that one out for himself, so the Doctor forgot to complain about his interruption. "And everything really happened?"

"Not all in the same timeline. Nor were all the characters in the books around for the events they were involved in." The Doctor looked at Amy. "Did the last one end on a cliffhanger?"

"I don't know. This was supposed to be the last book in the series." She held up _Against the Fall of Night_. "But it wasn't due out until Sunday."

"And the world never got to Monday. The world ended on the morning of 21st April 1996, which is significant because it's thirty-six hours before time travel formula was originally worked out on your world. Odd, because on most worlds that discovery is a fixed point-but on yours, it's a moving target. I've always suspected that was deliberate." The Doctor contemplated the four of them. "But the book would have been printed and shipped to the booksellers, and presumably the author. If the museum was hosting a signing, they probably already had the copies. Easy enough for someone to snag one, if they went to the trouble of putting that case together."

"So whoever was writing these for us- for Amy," Clyde corrected himself, "thought he or she had thirty-six more hours than they did."

"She," Amy said definitely. "It has to be our school mistress, who, given the other parallels, must be the school mistress in the book."

"And the Herald," Josh added. Nat thought he was about to say more, but he just turned the book in his hands over and over.

The Doctor had turned over the nearest book and pointed at the circular design on the top of the page. "She was known as the Herald on three worlds: Trion, Gallifrey, and Earth, but the connection with Gallifrey was long forgotten, lost in the early days when Rassilon first harnessed the Eye of Harmony," he read.

'The one the Daleks found in that weird alternate 1963?" Amy asked. She had _Starry Night_ in her hands and was peeking at passages as they talked.

"That one, yes. And the connection with Trion was never fully understood either, though in the future Trion and Earth will become allies without anyone quite knowing why. Rassilon had the sense to make an edict that we weren't to touch the Herald's timeline. Unfortunately, the reasons were forgotten by the time of the war. There were maybe half a dozen of my people who knew even one name, and finding them on Earth in the 20th century before they came into their knowledge would have been nearly impossible."

Amy suddenly dropped the book in her hands as if burned, and grabbed _The Shape of Things to Come_. "Wait, I remember. When they save Sarah, they make an oblique reference to one of the Heralds' names. Let me find the passage."

"Good job, Amy." Clyde offered her a high five.

"I haven't found it yet." Amy turned back to her book, flipping through pages. "I know what the page looks like. It's opposite the drawing of Avenir's plot coming to fruition. Hard to forget that image."

The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair, disordering it even more than it had been. Absently he thrust his hands in his pockets and frowned. "What's this?" He pulled out a white object. He studied it a moment and then carefully unfastened a piece of sticky tape and unwrapped a small piece of paper. "Not yours, Amy? Rory? No, the only place you could have picked this up was on Starship UK. That was when these first appear in records."

Josh stared. "The Orbus Postremi tried using those as identification once, but there was a schism and both the Crimson Chapter and the White claimed it. Made it pretty much useless. I remember someone telling me that it was more common on Trion, but I don't remember who or how they would know."

"I've never seen it before in my life - no, wait. Someone I knew wore a pendant like that, but I don't remember who." Amy grimaced. "It's not River's?"

"I've seen pendants like this before. The Order of Observers - another name for the Orphans of the Future," the Doctor mused. "Not River's. Whatever else she might be, she's already shown herself to be at odds with their philosophy. No member of the Order would play that fast and loose with time. 'Hello, Sweetie' indeed." He caught the rest of the crew looking at him and suddenly remembered he should be explaining. "They're used for data storage, and I think-" he started examining the console, "there should be a port for it somewhere. The Order was a respected ally- as much as the Time Lords have respected allies- which is to say, they were tolerated at best. At the very least, they approved of the Order's tenets of non-interference and puzzled over the mutual legends. Ah, here." He dropped the pendant in and clicked it into place. "Let's see what you've got for me." While the TARDIS read the pendant's information, he glanced at the piece of paper in his hand. On what would have been the inside when it was wrapped around the pendant, there was something written in a familiar hand that he couldn't place. "Don't you forget me, Doctor," he read. "I'd say we're on the right track."

Clyde was looking over his shoulder at the note. "No signature. Just that funny squiggle that's in the books." Clyde studied it carefully. "If they wanted you to remember them, why didn't they sign the thing? Or is that a signature?"

"It's a glyph - Ancient High Gallifreyan - not a signature. The Heralds' signature. Because the old texts were forbidden to mention their real names, they had to use something else. Somewhere along the way they must have embraced it, as there are documents that bear that sigil. You can see it in miniature in the books' illustrations, too." The Doctor scowled. "It's a date. Or an event. A form of relative dating, rather than absolute. That's the mark you'd use to indicate the ur-moment. It's when you count from, whether forward, backward or sideways."

"I don't get it."

As always, the Doctor appreciated Rory's prompts for exposition, but Luke beat him to the answer, "For example, if you take these books, they could be put in several different orders. But _Starry Night_ has to happen before _The Book of Tomorrows_ and _Flight of the Dauntless_ has to happen after it. So you could number those books as -1, 0 and 1, respectively. Before the Book is torn apart it has to exist, and they can't gather up the pages until it's been torn apart." He glanced at the Doctor for approval.

"Very good. And the Heralds' timeline is, well, they're individually the most complex temporal objects the Earth ever produces, and they're also linked together in ways that no other people are. Mostly because they're aware of tampering with their timelines and can and will work to correct their courses, and the more often this happens, the more likely it is to happen again. Most people wouldn't even notice, but they adjust their lives to the tide. Not a fixed point, but something that will happen despite all attempts to change it. Like an air bubble, attempts to remove it will only cause it to shift in time or space, or the attempt to change it will become the cause. The only way to eliminate that point would be to-" he trailed off, "-to reboot the universe."

"Which you just did," Rory said slowly. "So what now?"

"It's bad, isn't it?" Luke stared at the file on the screen. "If you rebooted the universe just as it was-"

"- there's a structural element missing. Temporal paradox, then temporal collapse." He frowned at the TARDIS console. "Our course just changed." He pressed a few buttons.

"Is something wrong, Doctor?" Clyde asked.

"I don't think so. It won't show me the coordinates. Something or someone has programmed in a new course."

"The pendant? No, that's silly." Rory leaned over as if there were something he could do if he could see better. "Amy, are you looking for the passage or reading that book?" Rory waved a hand in front of her eyes.

"Um. Both." Amy had the grace to look mildly embarrassed. "But I think I found it. It's in the bit where Sarah reveals she's from the future." She read aloud, "The Orbus Postremo was created to guard the Book of Tomorrows. Later, its mission grew to safeguard Earth's timeline from forces internal and external-"

"How old were you when you read these?" Clyde asked dubiously.

"Eight," Amy informed him. "Or maybe seven."

"She read Harry Potter at that age," Rory confirmed.

Amy glared at them both and returned to reading. "-internal and external who might accidentally or deliberately irrevocably damage the time stream."

"What does that have to do with her name?" Clyde gave her an impatient look.

"I'm getting to that. But the Orbus Postremo was also called The Order of Observers in the book, so it's clearly relevant." She looked down at the page again and continued reading, "The Book's purpose doesn't end here and neither does ours. She knew and so it was written. I was named for her." Amy paused dramatically, "Implying that the Sarah in the book was named for the person who arranged for the Book to be written, the person who the Book was about."

"So the Herald's name is Sarah?" Rory said slowly as understanding dawned. "Anyone remember her last name?"

Nat found herself shaking her head, as silent as the rest.

"Maybe we're supposed to find the Book? Like they did," Clyde finally suggested. "If it tracks what was written in it, maybe it remembers the names."

"You may be right," the Doctor said excitedly.

Josh had already admitted to being a member of the White Chapter, and he was most likely to know where to start looking. But before Nat could say anything, he'd reached for his backpack and pulled out an oversized volume.

"I don't know how much use it will be. The writing was fading this morning. And my memories of what I'd read in it, too." He sounded shaky, and Nat realised that this was what had dragged him out of bed this morning in such a rush.

"That's the Book, isn't it? The real thing." Amy was staring at Josh as though he'd suddenly produced the Holy Grail from his bag.

"I thought it was in pieces." Nat found herself saying. "We saw pages in the tomb in Italy."

"Did you think the White Chapter would just leave them there? S- Someone had my father rebind the book before we went up the Dauntless." Josh was clearly upset that he couldn't remember the name. "This morning the words were fading, but now," he flipped through the pages, white writing on black pages, crimson on white, but blurred as though they were changing constantly.

The Doctor reached out to take it and opened to the front page. "This page is stable. One note from Braxiatel to Benny Summerfield in Ancient High Gallifreyan, A description of the Mandragora Helix. A note in the same hand as the one wrapped around the pendant. "If you are reading this, Doctor, you have two options. For a historical dead end, go to page 13. If I've disappeared turn to page 61." He looked up and frowned.

Rory snickered. "Whoever wrote that knew you well. Find Your Fate books anyone?"

"No page numbers," Amy noted.

He pointed to a glyph in the corner. "Numbered in the same non-linear system that I mentioned earlier. There is no 61." He started counting pages. "-59, 60, 61." Blank."

"No, wait." Josh slapped his forehead with his palm. "It was rebound out of order. Deliberately. I don't know why. But I remember her shuffling the pages."

"To muddle which page was 61. And which was 13," the Doctor replied absently. He ruffled the pages rapidly, then opened it up to a different one than he had before. "This page is newer than the others. Were pages lost?"

"Yeah. Like in the story. When it was rebound we were told to add three new pages. How could you tell which is the right one for the gap?"

"Because of the picture." He lifted the book and showed it to them.

"It looks like the illustrations in the books," was Amy's first reaction.

"Same artist, I think."

It was a surprisingly detailed sketch - two people with their backs to the artist in a garden somewhere looking up at a sky with no stars. Hadn't Amy said something about a world with no stars? Nat shivered, not knowing why.

"Amy, that's your back garden," Rory said.

"it's dated," the Doctor pointed out. "23rd April 1996."

"Two days after the world ended." Amy frowned. "Did you say something about time travel being invented on that date?"

"Yes. Thirty-six hours after the morning of the 21st." He studied the picture. "No identifying marks. And I'm beginning to understand why my people were forbidden this book." He slapped the page. "I see time differently from humans. This feels like an echo, but it's hard to tell. Amy, Josh, what do you see in this picture that I'm missing?"

"The old shed. You never destroyed it," Amy said instantly.

"We know there were three of them," Josh added.

"There are two in the picture," Rory protested.

"And the artist. Who didn't sign his work - or rather he did, with the same mark on the note." Nat moved in to get a closer look. "I did a forensic anthropology course. We learnt to look for things like artist's marks. No stars. Either the moon is behind the artist, or they've got another lighting source we can't see."

"Probably the former. You don't get that sort of light with a lamp." Clyde leaned on Nat's wheelchair to get a better look, then realised what he'd done. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay. Can you see or do you need me to get out of the way?" Normally, it would have bothered her, but there was nothing about this situation that was normal.

"I'm fine." He reached out a hand to trace lines. "They're the focus of the drawing, but over here in the window you can see faces. Children. And there, girl with a pigtail and a leather jacket with patches half-hidden by the shed."

"Ace." The Doctor looked pleased. "That's Amy's bedroom, and I think we know who the kids are."

Clyde continued, "There's a man and a woman. The hoods of their jackets hide their hair, but we can tell that the man is tall and the woman is short. And they're holding some sort of machinery. There's snow on the ground, which is strange for April. It's not clean, as though the artist was in a hurry to get it done and join the others, and yet they cared too much not to do their best work. And I _think_ this may have been done from memory."

"That would make sense. The original would have been lost when that timeline was overwritten. When were the new pages inserted?"

"Five years ago. They were blank. I remember watching this being drawn. We were waiting for something or someone and they were passing the book around. They each filled a page and then they filled in the last two pages with some sort of mathematical formula. The Herald and the other three. But there are only three in this picture. Ace is- something different."

"You weren't meant to understand. It was meant to lodge in the back of your memory until it was needed," the Doctor reassured him.

"She said something like that back then. That she only worried about changes to her agenda when she remembered she had an agenda." Josh stared at the drawing as though he might find something new in it.

'That's natural." The Doctor went very still. "She? I'm pretty certain the artist was a man."

Nat frowned. "Definitely she. But there was a man involved too. Red hair, Sarah asked me to get a pass for him before the launch and then he found the crash site on his way to the base." She suddenly realised what she'd said. "Sarah. Her name was Sarah. Of course it was."

"They were both Sarah. The two women. For once, Sarah didn't object to me calling her S.J.," Josh mused, then added, "Two men also, one ginger with a strange name and the other bald. The second was Sarah Pearson's husband."

"S.J.," Clyde almost shouted with relief. "Sarah Jane."

"How could we forget Mum?" Luke asked the Doctor.

"The same way I was nearly forgotten," the Doctor started. He might have said more if he hadn't been interrupted.

"Ollie, ollie, oxenfree," two children called from above them.

Nat stared. The girl was dressed in an old-fashioned snow suit, and the boy's clothes, whilst clearly serving the same purpose, looked wrong somehow. Alien.

When the girl got to the top of the staircase, she tilted her head to look at him then turned and stared at Amy. "Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high. Like a diamond in the sky."

The boy added, "Shining stars up in the night, I cannot count them all. But they keep the dark at bay and leave me safe to dream." He frowned. "Doesn't rhyme in English."

The girl patted his arm. "We've got all the time in the world to work it out."

Clyde stared. "Sarah Jane?"

"One of us is," the boy said. "Can you guess which?"

"I'll take that as a yes." The Doctor started climbing the stairs toward them and they darted away from the railing with a giggle, though they stayed in view on the balcony.

"Yesterday, upon a stair. I met a girl who wasn't there. She wasn't there again today. I wish, I wish he'd go away." Sarah Jane waggled her finger at him. "Mustn't."

The Doctor stopped dead on the staircase, not noticing the effect on the others, who had been following too close behind, except to absently steady Luke when the boy bumped into him. "Why mustn't I?"

"Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you when you're sleeping," they chorused together.

"How old are you, Sarah?" He studied the boy and added, "Turlough?

"The same age as she was." Turlough pointed at Amy. "Once upon a time. But time isn't right. Not yet. Maybe not ever. We never got that timing right again."

"That doesn't sound good," Rory observed. "Why don't you come down and talk to us?"

But Sarah reached for Turlough's hand and darted back into the TARDIS singing, "And I've lost Britain, and I've lost Gaul, And I've lost Rome and, worst of all I've lost Lalage!"

"Kipling," Amy said. "She's a little young though."

"Perhaps." He gave the four people who were blocking his way down the staircase a look and they obediently descended.

"Should we go after them?" Clyde started to do so, but the Doctor caught his shoulder.

"I'm not sure what's going on, but she said not to, and for the moment I'm inclined to agree. Assuming she was actually Sarah Jane and not a hologram." He glanced at the TARDIS sensors but they told him nothing.

"Ollie, ollie, oxenfree?" Clyde asked. "Why didn't the TARDIS translate that?"

"Because it's nonsense. More specifically a playground call from the United States." The Doctor looked at him thoughtfully. "And she's lost Britain. Was she in the United States for some reason?"

Luke shrugged. "She doesn't talk about the past much. Even to me. Stuff slips out, but- she did say once or twice that her Aunt Lavinia travelled a lot. I've never heard the Zagreus rhyme. Is it also American?"

"Gallifreyan. A bogeyman of sorts. I'm not sure how it's connected. Anti-time." He stopped, drumming his fingers on the console in the rhythm of the rhyme. "Time and anti-time. Oh, clever. When I was written out of time, my timeline started unravelling and I was there in various events I'd been through before."

Josh caught his eye. "She wrote it down in the book." He turned the page; the other side was covered in what looked like bits of poetry.

The Doctor stared at it blankly for a moment. "Zagreus. A jump rope rhyme- 'A my name is Ace'- goes through Ace, Benny, Charley and then stops with Charley underlined. That poem about crows. Just one line "Seven for a secret that's never been told." His finger traced around the page erratically. "Lines from songs, bits of nursery rhymes. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." He trailed off lost in his own thoughts.

"But why didn't she just reappear in the timeline, like you did when Amy remembered you?" Rory absently laid an arm on his wife's shoulders.

The Doctor looked up startled. "I don't know yet. But it wasn't instantaneous for me either. That's why Amy had time to make her speech. Still it's taking much longer than it should have." His musings were cut short when another figure appeared on the balcony.

"Somehow I expected Schroedinger's box to be a little bit plainer." Five sets of eyes focused on the balcony where a teen-aged Sarah Jane was sitting, wearing a brown and yellow school uniform and swinging her legs. This time no one moved.

The Doctor looked at her. "It's not Schroedinger's box. It's mine."

"But am I alive or dead? Is Andrea? You can't tell until you open the box."

"You're alive. We saved you." Clyde paused before admitting, "Well, Maria did."

Luke's eyes widened as he explained. "The first time the Trickster attacked, he persuaded Andrea to trade Mum's life for his."

She didn't seem to hear. "I'm worried about the others. It's hard being the eldest. They're not here yet and we don't have much time to spare. Time to open the box and see what's inside. Either way it won't be easy. It never is." She stood slowly and headed back to the TARDIS as if she wasn't sure she wanted to go back. "Don't stray from the trail. You might lose the way and then the bad wolf will get you."

When she'd gone the seven of them stared at each other.

"Is she seeing us or not?" Rory asked.

"Maybe on some level she is, and some level she isn't?" The Doctor turned to Luke and Clyde. "You knew what she was talking about?"

"A few years ago, the Trickster tried to alter time so that Andrea Yates lived and Mum died. Mum only stopped him by convincing Andrea to break their deal."

"But there was a moment when she was in limbo," the Doctor said triumphantly. "And that's when we saw her."

"So the other time- was she in limbo then too?" Amy gave him a worried look.

The Doctor started to reply, but was interrupted by Sarah Jane's reappearance on the balcony. This time, she wasn't alone. There was a tall blonde girl in the same blue school uniform and Turlough, _not_ dressed in a school uniform, though he should have been.

"Have we lost them or have they lost us?"

"Either. Both. Or perhaps they never found us. They weren't looking for a schoolgirl, SJ."

"Don't SJ me, _Vislor_."

"Children," the blonde girl said primly and they both glared at her.

The Doctor winced. "Hello."

'Tell me the Doctor isn't dressed like the English master at St Brendan's."

"The Doctor isn't dressed like the English master at St Brendan's," Sarah Jane parroted obediently, "Though how I'd know given that that's twenty years in my future."

"Eighteen," the other girl corrected absently.

"How did you know it was me?" the Doctor asked, looking from one to the other and trying to remember where he'd seen the other girl before. Those uniforms-that was it. Fifth incarnation, they'd been in Switzerland, and Turlough had had a good reason for not wearing his uniform, as he recalled.

"Who else could it be?" Turlough leaned insouciantly on the railing. "Unless this is a trap."

The blonde girl - Sarah Lynch - moved to join him. "We know it's a trap. But he isn't the one who set it. Unless he's been deceived. We were."

"Who do you think would want to trap you?" The Doctor gave her a worried look.

"Is it for us? I didn't say that." Sarah Jane entwined her fingers around Turlough's. "Not the first time. Not the last. I wasn't to know you and you weren't to remember you, or was it the other way around?"

"My guardian has plans," Sarah said. "He thinks to use me to his own ends. To capture time within a ball."

"Not the Black Guardian," Turlough clarified. He reached out his free hand to the other Sarah. "But still a threat. Time to go?" He started walking back towards the door, the other two beside him.

"Mustn't keep our captor waiting," Sarah Jane replied And with that they were gone.

"I wonder how many times we'll see her. And who was that bloke?" Clyde asked disapprovingly. "Was he the other kid?"

"Vislor Turlough. Yes He used to travel with me. We ran into Sarah Jane twice. No, three times. When she was at school in Switzerland, in the Death Zone and then she ended up travelling with us for a time." The Doctor reached into his jacket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver, so that he could scan the balcony. "Nothing that shouldn't be there."

"He's the one who illustrated the books," Amy pointed out. "Her boyfriend too- at least they lived together. And the other girl was Sarah Pearson."

"I met her once. As Sarah Lynch. Her guardian - Avenir was the one causing trouble in Switzerland." The Doctor went very still. "I don't- there's something bothering me about what they said and I don't know what. Think, Doctor, think. They didn't say much." He glanced down at the books and started laughing "Brendan Sarn. I should have got that- where I first met him and where I left him. And Sarah Jane wrote them - she was using her Aunt's name as an alias the first time I met her. My clever Sarah Jane."

"I wasn't to know you and you weren't to remember me," Luke said unexpectedly. "That's the correct line. She had it reversed. It's one of the bits on this." He pointed to the page they had been studying

Abruptly the Doctor ran up the stairs into the depths of the TARDIS. "I'll be right back. Talk amongst yourselves."

Luke and Amy ignored this admonishment and followed him up the staircase, but to Nat's relief, they were the only two. Josh stood and came over to her with the Book of Tomorrows. "See what you can make of this."

As the Doctor had said, the page was covered in poetry and nursery rhymes. "We should make a list. Sources and themes."

Josh produced a pen and paper from his bag and Rory and Clyde crowded around offering hints and tips.

* * *

"Come on, old girl. You can't have lost it. Here, I think." He stopped at a door in the corridor, indistinguishable from any of the other doors. He pushed it open and went in.

"You could share," Luke said, as the Doctor frantically started flipping through the books in the bookcase. "This was Mum's room, wasn't it? When she travelled with you, I mean." He inspected a jumble of wires and necklaces on the dresser.

"Yes, it was. And she had a copy of that book when she lived here. So where is it? The Doctor suddenly sat down on the bed, deflated. "Except you read it, so she must have taken it with her."

Luke nodded. "She must have read and reread that paperback about a hundred times."

The Doctor jumped up again. "She had a hardcover. I remember her complaining that it was the American edition."

"Maybe she left it in the library," Amy offered. "Or another room. Especially if the TARDIS landed somewhere and she got distracted. Was there any other place she liked to read? Oh, wait!" Amy sat up suddenly. "That's where she got the idea to use books to jog our memories. That's how Polly did it in _Fire and Hemlock_."

"Hush. I need to think this through." The Doctor held up a hand and then,"So she got the idea from this book, but we'd already solved that part of it, so it must be an actual book we need. What year was it published?" he asked Luke, but didn't give him time to answer. "No, that doesn't matter because she could have got it from the TARDIS library. But she's the one who told me about it. And I remember it being one of her favourite books. That and _A Wrinkle in Time_. And wait, the date does matter because she got the idea for her own books from it."

"1984. Copyright 1985, so it must have been published towards the end of the year." Luke burst out, nearly as rapidly as the Doctor had been speaking, as if he were afraid of being cut off.

"So the maths for her own books works, but not for when she travelled with me in the seventies and certainly not for when she was at school." He stopped abruptly and spun around. "But that wasn't when she read it. Not the first time. She had it with her when she joined me for the second time." Suddenly he was out the door again and halfway down the hall.

The other two followed at a more sedate pace.

He didn't go far before using the sonic screwdriver to unlock another door. This one was also sparse, as if someone had once lived here but had moved on long ago, but whomever had lived here had left more behind. By the time Luke and Amy had piled in, the Doctor already had a book in his hand and was flipping through it.

"Hey, that looks like the illustrations in the books," Luke said, but the Doctor didn't take any notice.

The others did, though. "Doctor?" Amy said softly.

"What? I know it's in here somewhere." But he looked up anyway.

Amy just pointed at the charcoal sketch hanging on the wall, and the Doctor let the book drop on the bed. "Leadworth, 22nd April 1996," Amy read as she stared at it incredulously. "That's my house. The exact same angle as the other, but there are three hooded figures."

"Except as far as I know, Turlough was never in Leadworth, and certainly not while he was travelling with me. And that's been hanging on the wall since we ran into Sarah Jane in the Tiernsee in 1965. And Sarah Lynch- Sarah Pearson." The Doctor sat down on the bed, bouncing a bit. "Bring it over, Amy."

"The back garden where you landed. Old shed and all." Amy reached up and pulled the sketch down, flipping it over. "Nothing. Wait." She carefully detached the brown paper from the back of the frame. There was nothing on the back of the picture and Amy looked disappointed. "Fire and Hemlock referred to a painting in the book. There turned out to be something on the back of it.."

"No, you're right. Look on the paper." Luke reached for the paper, but then stopped. "On the back."

She laid the paper on the bed and they all crowded around.

"Coordinates." The Doctor stared at it for a moment trying to parse where and when it might be.

Luke and Amy sat down on the bed to get a closer.

The Doctor flipped the sketch over and stared at it. "That's it - that's the day the world ended in the other timeline. Time and place. How could they have known?"

"Echoes of a time that never was. And you should be glad of that," Sarah Jane said from the doorway.

"Mum, is it really you?" Luke asked, though she still looked too young.

"Just another shadow." She shrugged.

"From a timeline that never was," The Doctor countered.

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust," Sarah Jane quoted at him.

"Is it my imagination or is she getting easier to understand?" Luke asked as he studied the sketch.

"Do you know the easiest way to create an ontological paradox?" Sarah asked this as though it was a riddle and perhaps it was.

Luke started to say something but stopped, bewildered.

"The first iteration isn't a paradox at all, but someone from the future alters the past in such a way to close the loop," the Doctor said slowly. "You freed me from the Pandorica in such a way that I was able to free myself at an earlier time, thereby overwriting the timeline in which you did. Your return to the timeline should have been instantaneous, as mine was, but-."

"Things have happened that should not be erased; we walk the bounds to prevent this."

"And you're catching on the knots and loops," the Doctor said, suddenly understanding.

Amy's eyes drifted back to the picture. "You were in Leadworth in 1996. But the picture was drawn before?"

"You don't have to count the stars, you just need to know them by name," was Sarah Jane's reply and then she was gone.

'That's from _A Wrinkle in Time_ ," Amy said.

"No, _A Wind in the Door._. Remember?" Luke turned to the Doctor. "What did she mean?"

"Humans are temporally linear by nature. Your Mum- all four of them, for a variety of reasons some of which I'm only begin to suspect, have lived exceptionally non-linear lives." The Doctor paused as he considered how to explain this. "Amy, do you remember River saying that because she was a time traveller, she was a complex temporal object?"

"When we were dealing with the Weeping Angels. Yeah, I remember." Amy sat down on the bed beside Luke.

"Well, she was right - any time traveller is, for a very low value of complex. You're a little more complex because you lived in and remember a rewritten reality." The Doctor might have said something else, but Sarah Jane appeared in the doorway again. "I remember that yellow slicker."

"This isn't Nerva Station." Sarah Jane looked bewildered in a way she hadn't previously.

"Or Skaro," the Doctor offered. "Are you real, Sarah Jane, or just another temporal ghost?"

Sarah Jane glared at him. "I think perhaps you'd best prove who you are first. Where were you when the stars went out? When and why did you regenerate?"

The Doctor gave her a wry smile. "The first time the stars went out, I wasn't even born and that time is only remembered in legend, even by my own kind. The second happened when I was in the Pandorica."

"The DNA of the person in the Pandorica was human- and female."

"I wasn't in there long. I was replaced by Amy over there." He gestured. "As you should recall if you remember that much, because you're the one who got me out the first time." He smiled suddenly. "And I imagine that's part of the test."

"Second question." Sarah Jane's eyes glinted, though he couldn't tell if it was in amusement or something else.

"Metebelis Three, radiation and/or Dust, Faction Paradox plot. And you shouldn't remember any of this."

"You disrupted my timeline. It's not the first time that's happened; I've developed self-defence mechanisms." She studied him. "Meeting you rarely causes that. What happened? The Pandorica?"

The Doctor gave up trying to figure out what she remembered and how. "I ended up rebooting the universe, but we didn't both re-enter the timeline simultaneously, so the one time we had to time things perfectly has been thrown off. This happened to me once before. It's like the problem paused in time until I could deal with it. But this raises a problem, You were transmatting from Earth-"

"-to Nerva Beacon, but we were pulled off our route by my people who sent us to Skaro. And before this your future self arranged for me to borrow you for a reason I can't explain to you now. Mostly because I'm not to know yet." Sarah Jane glared at him, but thankfully didn't try to hit him.

"Past self now." He looked at her hopefully. "I don't suppose you know where you're going or what you were supposed to do? The way the plan worked, aside from one way transportation, I wasn't supposed to know what you were going to do. Just that you were going to create a distraction while I set other things in order."

She shook her head. "Nope. I will, I imagine, but I haven't got there yet. Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"

"I'm not sure I should," the Doctor said.

"If you say spoilers, I _will_ hit you. At the moment my life and the Earth's timeline-"

"The universe's timeline," the Doctor absently corrected her.

Sarah Jane grimaced. "The _timeline_ depends on what I can remember of alternate timelines _up to_ my present, glimpses of the human race's future gained during our travels, and educated guesses. Another hint of my future isn't going to hurt anything that hasn't already been damaged."

The Doctor sighed and gave in. He'd been in _that_ position more than once. "Amy Pond, Luke Smith. And you wouldn't happen to know why the TARDIS is landing?"

"I believe this is my stop." Sarah Jane headed down the corridor and into the control room, not seeming to notice the others crowded around the Book of Tomorrows. She reached out as she passed the console and caught the chain, lifting the pendant out of its slot and dropping it in a pocket.

The Doctor made an abortive move to stop her, but she had already opened the door and was walking out into a wood-panelled room.

"This is not your time. Best not to follow. Don't you forget me, Doctor - at least, not again." She didn't look back.

"Who could ever forget you, Sarah Jane?" He pressed the lever to close the door.

"Should we go after her?" Clyde started to do so, but the Doctor caught his shoulder.

"She said not to follow." The Doctor looked from one to the other. "It would cause problems with causality, and the timeline is still fragile. I think the pendant was there so that we'd be there when she needed us."


	6. Part of the Plan

> Love when you can  
> Cry when you have to  
> Be who you must  
> That's a part of the plan  
> Await your arrival  
> With simple survival  
> And one day we'll all understand  
> \- _Part of the Plan_ , Dan Fogelberg

Once the TARDIS faded from sight, Sarah Jane surveyed the room. It was a small storeroom and she could hear the low hum of engines, so she was probably on a spaceship. A single door, opposite where she was standing, had been hidden by the TARDIS. She crossed the room to inspect it and saw a note, which said in her own handwriting that she should stay out of sight until she was needed.

Trusting her future self to know best, and not having anyone to actually question, she did as the note said. Thankful that her boots were designed for quiet, she headed down the corridor.

The ship was quite small as ships went, though not as small as the early Apollo missions. It was clearly designed for a crew of eight or less. After taking a moment to orient herself, she headed towards what she assumed was the front of the ship. At the very least, it was where the voices were coming from. As she walked, she glanced in each room, prepared to drop out of sight at a moment's notice. She grabbed a protein bar from the galley, not knowing when she'd get a chance to eat again, before deciding that her best bet was the unused bedroom. To her delight, she found a view screen and a moment's rummaging in the desk it was sitting on provided her with headphones. The labels on the buttons were in an unfamiliar script, but she quickly found the setting for the bridge.

It was clearly both the biggest room on the ship and the room in which the crew were expected to spend most of their time. Currently there were three people in the control room, only two of whom she recognised- herself and Turlough. She settled down to watch, trusting that she'd know when the time came to appear.

* * *

Sashka had taken one look at Josh's gunshot wound and settled him at the table on the bridge while she used some sort of medical device to remove the bullet and suture the wound. The table was situated so that the tiny crew could eat a meal there or play cards whilst keeping their eye on the instrument panel. Sarah Jane had always liked this class of Trion ship.

"So now what?" Josh asked as she joined him at the table.

Turlough checked a few readings before sitting down himself. "We wait."

Sarah Jane fidgeted a bit. "I'm not fond of waiting."

Turlough intertwined his fingers and stared at Sarah Jane over them. "I don't suppose you thought to bring a copy of the prophecy with you."

Sashka looked up, startled, a question in her eyes.

"Sorry. Josh Townsend, Keeper of the White Chapter of the Orbus Postremo on Earth, meet Vivan Sashka of the Orbus Postremo on Trion, and Vislor Turlough, also of Trion." To her relief, Josh nodded as though that made perfect sense. And it did - once you had all the pieces. "It's a holy book. I was pushing things just to demand to read it. At least Sir Donald was nice enough to agree," Sarah Jane said dryly. "However, I did happen to have this in my pocket." She passed Turlough a pendant.

"Where did that come from?" Josh blurted out.

"It was something Turlough gave me. I've had it for a while. I suppose I could have gone around waving it about, but it's unique- or rather there are only two on this planet in this time period. I'm surprised that it didn't become a symbol for the Orbus Postremo to recognise each other by the way it did on Trion." She nodded to Turlough to show it to Josh.

"We tried. But both sides claimed the usage of it, so you couldn't tell Crimson Chapter from White, which made it useless." Josh turned it over in his hand. "What is it? A tiny camera." Abruptly he dropped it on the table and started to stand, only to sit back down wincing. "S.J., we do have the Book. Dad said I should bring it with me in case it was needed. I'm not sure what he meant, but it's in my rucksack." He gestured at the bag which was now lying in a corner of the bridge.

Sarah Jane stared at him for a moment and then started to laugh. She sobered almost immediately. "That's good to know, but leave it where it is for now. It may prove much more useful than that gun, but I'd rather it stay where it can't get damaged for the moment. Sorry, Josh, this must seem like gibberish to you."

"No more than the book, and I've studied that all my life. But it wouldn't hurt to explain things a bit more," he hinted, "starting with the pendant." He paused then added, "It didn't say that any of the Heralds were alien, but the description makes more sense if he is."

"It's something a bit more sophisticated than a camera. A scanner, a self powering battery, a storage unit larger than any hard drive currently on the market. And the most recent ones are USB compatible," she added, picking it up and flicking her finger over one of the curves which shifted to reveal a connector. "Very much ahead of its time even on Trion."

"One of the rare instances of technology moving from Earth to Trion, instead of the other way." Turlough reached under the table and ran his fingers over the buttons switches and lights, before finding a slight depression. "No, that's for a betastick." Finally he found the correct port. "Here we go." A directory showed up on the screen inlaid on the table.

Sarah Jane smiled. One of the exiles had returned to Trion with a copy of the specs for the USB protocol and a Linux CD-ROM in his bags. Both had since become ubiquitous on Trion. She reached over and selected a directory and then set it to display on the big screen at the front, so that no one would have to read upside down.

Sashka stared at it for a moment. "I'm of no use to you here. I can make some sense of the English, but that's just nonsense to me."

"Stick around, you might spot something we miss," Josh said. "Is there a Book of Tomorrows on Trion?"

"No. Legends that such a book exists, but no one has ever seen it. But then, we tell the stories of the Herald to our children- even those of us who don't believe." She shrugged. "Sarah told me once that the Herald is not spoken of on your world except by a select few."

"Sarah told you," Josh said incredulously. "How many times did you protest that you weren't the Herald, S.J.?"

"Josh." Sarah Jane took a deep breath. "I try not to be aware of it and most times I succeed. It's only when things start falling into place and I can see several moves ahead on the board that I'm conscious that I have an agenda."

Silence filled the room for several minutes while they read Duke Giuliano's prophecies.

"Why is it that prophecies are never written in a coherent fashion?" Turlough asked.

"Aside from the fact that they were written by an Italian nobleman from the fifteenth century? You're the one who's always complaining about how primitive Earth is compared to Trion. There's stuff in here that not even someone from modern day Earth would understand. He described what he saw in the idiom he knew. At least he had the decency to write it in Latin or English." Sarah Jane moved to the next page. "What bothers me is that I didn't tell him most of this. I didn't even know most of this until I read it. It's either a warning or a trap."

"You know about the war, I assume?" Turlough asked, not taking his eyes off the page he was reading. He might have had several terms of Latin at St. Brendan's, but that had been a long time ago.

"What war?" Josh and Sashka asked at the same time.

"The one foretold. Good aliens and bad aliens coming to Earth." Sarah Jane took a deep breath. "No one was wrong, Josh." She flicked ahead several pages. "That is a Dalek. If they don't kill everyone, they'll use the survivors for slaves."

"But either way could come true. The good aliens could win." Trust Josh to be quick on the uptake. "So killing everyone wasn't the best plan, I'm guessing. And you two are instrumental in making sure the good guys come out ahead."

Turlough stared at him and then at Sarah Jane.

"Yes, Turlough, I have been targeted by crazy doomsday cultists, and if you ever mention it in jest I swear I will never speak to you again. Josh, if everything goes as planned, what happens today will give the good guys - the Time Lords - the edge they need to win the war. But I need to know as much as I can to make the right choices and you're just going to have to trust me to do so. No grandstanding with a gun."

"I used all my bullets anyway. Besides, it's still in the Dauntless." Josh looked at her. "My job was getting you here. It's your show now."

"Good. Because the answers might not be as clear as they are right now." She turned back to the prophecies. There was more here than just this warning. Even if they got through this, the tasks here might take her a hundred years to complete. She thought back to the day in 1996 when she'd received a warning from herself, one hundred years in the future, and sighed.

* * *

Sarah Jane looked at her older self on the screen. She was here because something had gone wrong - unless she _was_ part of the plan. She stared down at the pendant in her hand, twin to the one her other self had given Turlough. She'd said it was some sort of battery. Batteries stored energy.

She'd been warned about the dangers of crossing her own timeline; she'd studied under Blimovitch himself. There was an obvious hypothesis here. This battery would store the artron energy released when she touched her other self.

"The thing is,." Sarah Jane's older self was saying, "The original purpose of the Book was to warn me that the comet was coming and with it the Mandragora Helix and then-" She broke off as three figures appeared in front of them. Two men and a woman.

"Sarah Jane Smith. Vislor Turlough." He ignored the other two people in the room, as if they didn't exist.

"Lord Rassilon. It's been a while."

The man flinched slightly as if he was bothered that Sarah Jane had recognised him. Perhaps because he'd regenerated since she'd seen him last.

"S.J. These are the good guys, right," Josh asked, warily.

The younger Sarah Jane, safely tucked away, wondered the same. She had reasons to mistrust Rassilon.

"I'm afraid so." She had this half-smile on her face, like she suddenly understood something. "War not going well?"

They ignored her question.

"Sarah Jane Smith, Vislor Turlough, if we were to charge you with manipulation of the timeline for your own purposes what would you say."

"What?" Josh blurted out.

"We've been tracking them for a while. This is all their doing," the time lord made a sweeping gesture. "They arranged for the creation of your order. They manipulated you."

"That was five hundred years ago," Turlough said easily. "And no more than you would have done. Have done."

"A mere moment with time travel, of course." Rassilon inclined his head to indicate that she'd scored a point.

Sarah's half-smile hadn't wavered at all. "Doesn't it mention that in the Book? That Sarah- I came to him and told him what to write. I've been completely transparent about my actions."

Josh stared at her. "But you've been fighting against your destiny ever since-"

"Very clever, recruiting a religious cult to get you where you wanted to be. Blind obedience. Joshua Townsend, can't you see how she used you?"

"So that's why the Doctor left. Pompous idiots." The younger Sarah Jane muttered under her breath then looked around cautiously, though she knew no one could hear her.

Josh looked from Sarah Jane to the Time Lords. "Sarah Jane, it's not true."

"Everything he's said has been true." Sarah sat down suddenly and started flicking through the document on the screen as though it held the answers. "But this isn't about punishment; it's about blackmail."

The man- the Time Lord stretched out his left arm, palm up and curved his hand inward. Light reflected off the ring he wore and there was a sudden blinding blue flash.

When his vision cleared, Josh could see a gap where the wall should be and he had to turn away. Inside the crack was a mass of white vapours and an unpleasant glare of light.

"And there's the threat: they're going to throw us into that crack, I imagine. Unprotected. Unwrite my timeline." Sarah Jane sounded like she found this funny, but she added soberly. "Josh is out of this. He was just the right person at the right time. I trust you will send him home. Safely." She stood lightly, holding her hands behind her back.

Turlough moved to stand beside her. "So we've seen the stick. What's the carrot?"

"Soon enough the Daleks will be turning their thoughts towards Earth and Trion. Neither is particularly valuable from a strategical standpoint, but -

"It's time." A hand reached over to switch off the screen, and Sarah Jane looked up to see Sashka standing there. She hadn't even noticed when the other woman left the bridge.

Sashka studied her. "You look so young. You were older when we first met."

"And you were younger." she replied rudely. "Sorry. Does she know I'm here?" Then Sarah Jane realised, "She must. She wrote that note."

"We knew there was a chance of this outcome. You were our backup plan." Sashka opened the door and Sarah Jane walked through it. "But we may not need you. He thinks to bargain for what he wants. And if they can convince him to take the bait, it will be much easier to spring the trap. Another game of dominion. Do they ever end?" She didn't wait for an answer, but moved past Sarah Jane to return to the control room.

Sarah Jane caught her hand and pressed the pendant into it. "For my future self. And maybe someday they will. If we play our tiles right."

The woman nodded and disappeared around the corner.

"-in your best interests to comply." the voice echoed through the corridor, more arrogant than it had sounded over the view screen.

"So, let me get this straight. You're offering to protect us from those Daleks and what are we giving you in return?" Josh asked.

"The keys to the kingdom, so to speak. We hand over the Book of Tomorrows and the location of the portal on Earth and the bridge on Trion and war _doesn't_ come to Earth. Or Trion," Sarah Jane specified. "You promise to keep us safe. And you don't show up before the specified time. We don't want the Daleks getting curious."

"Done. Your third will accept this."

"He will," Turlough said. "We've fought too long and too hard to see our work ruined by the Time War."

"Do you agree to this, Josh Townsend, Vivan Sashka? Speaking for Earth and for Trion."

"I follow the Herald and her Shadow," Sashka said softly. "I trust them to make the right choice."

"What he said." Josh sounded more uncertain. "Why do you need our agreement? Isn't Sarah's word good enough for you?"

"Because of the charge we have laid against them. They have taken on responsibilities on a grander scale. Where and when?" Rassilon demanded.

"We didn't construct it, so we don't know where it is yet, beyond a rough idea, but our third is caught in the events that will cause it to open. The portal will activate twice, the first will be too quick for you to get a fix on. Once we know where it is, we will activate it again. That will be your signal. Do not come earlier, or you'll disrupt the balance of time. Do not come later. You'll have fifteen minutes before we shut it down and destroy it." The older Sarah Jane stood there as though she was accustomed to ordering Time Lords around. It looked like fun.

"We will put the safety of Earth and Trion above all else," Turlough added. "If the portal is destroyed, it is of no use to the Daleks."

"If the portal is destroyed, it is of no use to anyone. We shall be there at the appointed hour." Rassilon and his honour guard disappeared as smoothly as they'd appeared.

"S.J., I know you're the Herald and all, but are you sure they're the good guys? And if they can do all that, why would they need the book?"

"They are. It doesn't mean what they want is right, though," Turlough replied. "People have tampered with the book, more than once."

"In an advanced science is equivalent to magic sort of way. Do you know what the Herald's true job is? It's not dealing with alien invasions," her older self added.

"No," Turlough snarked. "That's just our hobby."

"On Trion, it is said that they protect the timeline." Sashka sat back down at the table, looking tired.

"Here too. I just- Nat came up with all that misinformation we'd seeded the internet with, and I had to let it stand." Josh leaned forward. "But if you protect the timeline, isn't handing over the keys to someone else sort of like skivving off?"

"Portals can be used for all sorts of things, and Time Lords have a history of underestimating lesser races," Turlough replied softly. She would have bet he was smirking.

Sarah Jane was so intent on the conversation, she jumped when someone touched her shoulder.

"Task completed?" The Doctor asked her.

"You'll send me back where I was?" She retorted. His brown curls were tangled and the velvet of his coat was torn, the lace tattered. "You and Harry will be worried."

"Of course. Maybe this time you will convince me."

Convince him of what? Sarah Jane didn't have time to ask before she heard Harry's voice.

'Sarah? Old girl? Are you okay?"

"Harry." Sarah Jane blinked up at him, wondering why her brain was so fuzzy. "Where are we?"

"I don't know, but I think we'd better find the Doctor." He stopped at the sound of a distant explosion. "Preferably without getting our heads blown up."

"Is that him, just over that rise?" Sarah Jane pointed. Harry took a quick peek over the top and nodded.

He reached for her hand and she set herself to climbing the rocky terrain

"We've had a slight change of plans." The Doctor then proceeded to inform them that they were on Skaro.

Any fuzz left in Sarah Jane's brain was cleared out by that single word. Someone had told her they'd been diverted to Skaro. Who? The explosion pushed the thought out of her head, and she focused on staying alive.


	7. Things That You Know

> You've seen more than they could ever know  
> No matter what they say  
> You've earned the right to be so bold  
> But this life it takes its toll on you  
> Every face around you looks so tired and so old  
> - _Things That you Know_ \- The Wailing Jennys

"You're taking this better than I'd hoped," Sarah Jane said as she repaired the Dauntless' comm system at the table. Turlough was in their ship, putting temporary patches on the bullet holes. The only way to return to Earth without too much attention was a controlled crash.

"Would you rather I was all 'I need to be able to trust you and how could you lie to me?'" Josh asked insouciantly. "I could give you a taste of your own medicine, but you had your reasons. It's not like I hold the high moral ground on this one. Just tell me- when did you know?"

"That you were White Chapter? In India, I knew- well, let's just say I knew a little more than I was letting on, and I flew there to flush out whomever was targeting me. So I knew when you followed me that you were Orbus Postremo, but I didn't know which chapter. Not until Italy." Her voice faltered. "At first I hoped Will was White Chapter too and that you two were doing a little good cop, bad cop routine."

"No. I wish we could have saved him, S.J."

"I do too. I'm not looking forward to telling his brother."

"Isn't his brother missing?"

"Hush-hush secret assignment that just ended, though I'm not supposed to know that either. Ben Kimmel might be an Air Force Pilot, but I made sure that the Navy will investigate the crash. He'll be assigned as their UNIT rep. If I died, I wanted people I trusted. Gibbs. Harry. Turlough. You."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. So we fake the crash and then sit through the investigation, which you've seeded with your own people."

"Trust me, Gibbs' only loyalty in this is to the truth. Sashka takes the ship back to Trion, sans Turlough, and he and I are going to drop out of sight. And you are going to act like you don't know where I am." Josh started to protest, but she raised a hand to stop him. "No arguments. I need a break, you need a break, plus I think you'll have your hands full with your inheritance. If you or Nat need me, you can contact me through Joey Maynard or Ian Chesterton."

"Using me and Nat for your travel arrangements- you _wanted_ to be found. And you knew what was waiting in that tomb in Florence- you insisted on going first."

"I knew some things. And I won't be dropping completely off the map, even now. This is part holiday, part setting some wheels in motion. You'll be able to find me if you try. Just- don't try."

"How is he in a fist fight? If you're going off with him, I need to know you're safe."

"I'm a hypocrite, Josh. I know you carry a gun and that means I don't have to. But I'm probably a better shot than he is. Not as good as Gibbs, but I did a refresher course with him before this all began." She put down her screwdriver. "This is done. I'd best go back and reinstall it. Are you almost ready to go?"

Josh looked at the spacecraft dubiously. "You're sure you can get this thing down."

"I'm sure."

* * *

She was woken by a scream that she only realised was her own when she was fully awake. She immediately fell silent.

"Sarah?"

"Turlough? We're not still on the Venture, are we?" Sarah Jane opened her eyes and closed them just as quickly. Not that that helped. "No, I remember trying to fly the Dauntless back through the atmosphere."

"I faked the crash as planned." He squeezed her hand. "Called the number you'd given me and told them I'd found the crash site. One dead pilot, two live but unconscious humans. The pass you'd arranged for me did the rest. They were very solicitous when they realised I knew you."

She'd asked Nat to get a pass for a 'friend' in the area who wanted to have lunch with her after the launch, and she'd had a photo all ready to go. "Good. Ready for eight months stuck on Earth?

"As long as I don't have to go back to St. Brendan's."

"Would I do that to you?"

"Yes. Can you sit up? Easy. You hit your head on landing."

She did, ignoring the dizziness and periodic feelings of panic, and sipped from the cup he held to her lips. "Tea. Good."

"Any memory loss?" Turlough asked.

"I don't think so. I remember being slightly unfocused when I returned to Skaro, but that didn't last long. Oh, sorry, you meant now. No. Just- something has shifted. I think the Time Lords lied about not bringing the war to Earth." Sarah Jane opened her eyes carefully, ignoring the pinpricks of glare. "It's taking all my tricks to focus on the right reality. Can you feel it, or was it just one of those nightmares?"

"Drink your tea," he advised her. "Yeah, I feel it. Time's shifting around the edges. I don't think they're here yet, but they've probably sent an advance guard in case their plan failed."

Sarah Jane looked down, relieved to find she was in her jimjams rather than a hospital gown. "Get me outside."

As Turlough started to help her up, the door opened.

"What are you doing in here?" Nat snapped.

Her voice hurt Sarah's brain. It was only then that she realised that Turlough had deliberately been speaking quietly. "He's a friend."

"Sarah Jane, you're not supposed to be getting out of bed."

"Can you not yell, Nat?" Sarah Jane put her hands to her head to emphasise the request.

The other woman manoeuvred her wheelchair so she was right beside Sarah Jane's bed. "You need to rest. You don't need strange men in here."

"Strange men? I've known Turlough since before you were born." Sarah Jane didn't mean to snap but it just came out.

"S.J.," Turlough said softly.

"Don't play peacemaker, Vislor. You're not very good at it." She rarely used his first name but it seemed justified here. She was tired, she was cranky and she needed to get out of this building now.

"What happened up there, Sarah? Do you have any idea how scared we were? And how could the pilot die of a gunshot wound when there were no guns on the plane?" Nat just wouldn't leave it alone.

Sarah Jane gave up. "What happened up there? First a crazy cultist tried to kill me, then a glowing blob of energy that had hitched a ride on that comet tried to kill me, and finally the White Chapter's friendly aliens decided to blackmail me. Would you like to complete the set? Or better yet, we can skip to the part where you decide once again that you can't handle the life I live and walk out of my life again. I honestly don't care right now." With an effort she swung her legs onto the floor, and was gratified when they didn't collapse beneath her. Now that her vision had cleared, she could see that she was in the infirmary. Catching Turlough's shoulder, she steadied herself. "I need to get out of here. I need some fresh air."

Turlough nodded and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to steady her.

"Nat, you can come with me or stay here. Your choice. Always your choice. Josh's too. Given that I'm not hooked up to any monitors and there's no medical staff, I'm guessing that my injuries were minor, and this room is making me claustrophobic. Too much time in that tin can of a spaceship." She didn't care what Nat said right now.

She wobbled a little as she walked out of the room, where she caught sight of Josh attempting a stealthy escape of his own.

"You need more space too?" He hadn't shaved yet, but he was clearly feeling better than she was.

"Fresh air. And I want to see the stars. Or the sun." It had been dark, hadn't it? Sarah Jane cursed herself for not remembering what she'd seen out the window. They were at the end of a hall, and the exit led out into what looked like a delivery area. Sarah Jane didn't care. She gestured for Turlough to let her down. She sat for a moment before lying down so that she could see the sky.

"What do you see?" Turlough asked as he sat down beside her.

"Trion. I'd like to go back there some day."

"Some day. I promise."

"Up there Josh. Right above the Big Dipper. That's where he's from." She pointed.

"Where who's from?" Nat's voice, but slightly more subdued. "Sarah- I heard you scream and I thought-"

"You thought Turlough was a cultist. No, he's just an alien and I just had a nightmare. Dreamed the stars went out again. They did once, a long time ago." She was drifting. If she could have, she would have dug her fingers in and clung to the Earth and to the here and now.

'An alien?"

"An alien," Josh confirmed as he sat down on Sarah Jane's other side. "Where else have you been, SJ?"

"Many places. Some I couldn't even find in the sky." She'd seen charts though, and she occupied herself pointing out places of interest. There would be time enough to think about the war and her next move tomorrow.


	8. Code of Silence

> Everybody's got a million questions  
> Everybody wants to know the score  
> What you went through  
> It's something you  
> Should be over now  
> - _Code of Silence_ , Billy Joel

"But why couldn't we follow her? We could have helped," Luke insisted.

"She was still out of time. She's retracing her own timeline and we're only here if she needs a course correction. If we try to interfere further, we might cause more damage."

"Like the case Amy tripped over? Someone might trip over us at the wrong time and throw everything else off?"

"Exactly, Rory." He paused as the TARDIS engines started up again. "I do believe we aren't done with the path that Sarah Jane has set for us." He examined the instruments. "It's tracing her biodata through time. Their biodata. We catch glimpses of them when they get caught in the void."

"And just now?" Luke asked. "She was really there this time. We saw her open the door."

"The reason we're following. The timeline was already starting to shift to accommodate their absence."

"The timing was off." Amy said.

"Ever so slightly. Fractions of fractions of seconds, but these can add up."

"The difference between exile and death." Turlough's voice drifted lazily from the balcony.

"Is it my imagination or does he look younger than last time?" Clyde asked.

"We're following Sarah Jane's timeline, not Turlough's. This would have been 81? 82? by her reckoning." He looked up at the boy, "Before we met."

"Yet our paths crossed so close we could have touched each other."

"You never did tell me why you were exiled."

"You never asked. I never told. Perhaps this could have been avoided if I had. Perhaps we thought you already knew. You have to give them credit though -my death caused hers in Hong Kong as assuredly as hers caused mine on Trion."

The Doctor started to protest, but then realised the boy was correct. "I caused this," he said softly, "as I caused Sarah Jane's death in Hong Kong."

Turlough leaned against the rail. "Let your opponent think that they're pulling the strings. The essence of the shadow game."

"Another game of dominion? Is that what this is?"

"Domain, dominion, domination. They name it differently in different parts of the world- my world."

"On Earth too. It's an odd echo." The Doctor suddenly understood. "Showed up there in the 1980s. One of the boom of board games, lost in the crowd. Was one of the Trion exiles responsible?"

Luke nearly dropped his book. "Mum plays. She taught me."

Turlough nodded absently at the boy before answering the Doctor. "Perhaps. I can guess at the shape of things to come, but only see as far as now." He turned to go, paused and turned back. "Would you put Rassilon back on the throne?"

The Doctor grimaced. "We did."

Turlough nodded tiredly. "The Althesbach clan was our Caesars, our Rassilon. WorldGov thought they were putting a puppet government in power in the South; it's only a matter of time before the poison ends up in their own cup. But I can prevent that. If I survive." He faded back into the TARDIS.

The Doctor had seen that- too late. The way he'd seen the pattern in Hong Kong too late to save Sarah Jane. And it had taken him too long to realise that the Althesbach province was on Trion. And his Seventh incarnation had jumped in without understanding all the nuances of the political situation, an amateurish mistake. "I lost sight of the bigger picture. I shouldn't have done that."

"We learnt that to our peril, once," a voice said from the balcony.

"Hello, Sarah. Is it Lynch or Pearson?" the Doctor asked, turning to focus on her.

The blonde teenager was dressed in a different uniform now. "Lynch now, Pearson later. We did this to ourselves. Riddled our timelines with paradoxes so that no matter how time shifted we would not be forgotten, and along the way we closed loops that should not be reopened."

The Doctor went very still. "You weren't to know me and I wasn't to remember you," he repeated slowly. "Or vice versa. I didn't want to know who ended up setting up the trap on Earth."

"What trap?" Rory looked worried.

"A trap to end a war. If we are where we should be and have done as we must, that will close as planned." She leaned on the railing as she had before.

"You think there's a reason you wouldn't be?" Clyde asked.

"The timing was crucial. We've just added another but a fraction of a second far enough out might throw us off. The players may be different but the outcome must be the same."

The Doctor smiled. "You're using the TARDIS for course correction. Clever of you."

Amy closed her eyes as though she was trying to retrieve something from her memory. "Wait, there are supposed to be four of you, and we've only seen three."

Sarah shook her head. "The fourth is our anchor. You may see him once or twice but no more. I only know of one time when he was caught in the void." She started to turn towards the door but looked back at them. "Four of us, all temporally sensitive, walking a path we've walked before. You know, perhaps better than we do the effects."

"Turlough's drawing. Glimpses of the future as well as alternate timelines." The Doctor stared at her. "Given the limitations of the human mind-."

"We're all too _determined_ to go mad." Sarah turned back and walked into the TARDIS proper.

"Stubborn, you mean," the Doctor said to the empty air. "I need to see that page again." He started up the stairs again.

Amy stopped him by laying a hand his arm and waving a bit of brown paper at him. "Brought it with me."

"Beautiful. Oh, now this is interesting." He stared at the strings of numbers, letters and symbols. "The top line is the coordinates for Leadworth in 1996 - not when I crashed there, but a week later. 22nd April."

"The day after the world ended, you said," Rory supplied.

Clyde peered over the Doctor's shoulder, before saying excitedly, "If SJS is Sarah Jane then SLP could be Sarah Lynch Pearson."

The Doctor nodded. "Which leaves VT and VP proving the pattern."

"And the numbers?" Amy asked.

"Coordinates. Or rather lists of coordinates. Sort of. This one," he pointed to the one marked VP, "matches the date on the front of the sketch but not the place. Somewhere in Canada. And the last one for Turlough also matches the date, but has him on Trion. The other two-" he studied the last strings of numbers for each one, "seem to indicate that both Sarahs were trapped, Sarah Jane out of time completely, and Sarah Pearson in an alternate future."

"Do you think someone kept them away deliberately? Why would they?" Nat asked. It was all perfectly mad, but then so was this ship.

"A riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a myth."

The Doctor looked up to see Turlough on the balcony. "A back garden in Leadworth. I gather this is significant?" His former companion had been too young to ask before.

The redhead nodded and absently straightened his school tie. "If you're going to divert someone's timeline, don't divert it onto a time machine."

After a moment the Doctor laughed. "The Trickster, the Black Guardian. Did he come after you again?"

"He thought he'd succeeded in that particular goal." Turlough rolled his eyes. "That given a choice, I wouldn't return to a place I despised. You saw how well that worked."

"So something didn't happen in Leadworth that should have?" Amy turned to the Doctor. "A week after you showed up at my door. Was this because of the crack?"

"History is adaptable," Turlough replied. "And legends even more so. In fourteen hundred years, who will care if it happened on a Tuesday or a Thursday, five years before or ten years after?"

"Or whether there were three people or four?" The Doctor smiled suddenly.

"It was accidental in the beginning, but useful in the end. Just because we're ephemeral doesn't make us mayflies. People forget that. And they also forget that a drawing usually has an artist."

"My people, you mean?"

But Turlough had already gone.

The Doctor stared after him, caught up in his own thoughts, until Amy spoke.

"So whatever they're worried about didn't happen on the date on the picture. Either picture. Nor in Leadworth." She moved restlessly around the console. "Why are they still being cryptic?"

"Maybe they're afraid someone is listening." Rory wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulders. "Doctor, have you thought of something?"

"The edge of something. I'd forgotten until just this moment that when I ran into Turlough in the other timeline, we discussed the origins of time travel on Earth and the last time the stars went out. That the formula that it's based on is called the Pearson-Smith theorem. That it's history looks deceptively fragile from the outside, but seems to be self-correcting. That the formula theorem was written on a blank page in an old journal. Josh."

Josh opened the Book to the page. "Here. I watched them write it without any idea of what it was."

"Of course not. The other option Sarah gave me was for a temporal dead end. Which would have lead me to this page. The state of human history can be determined by whether this page is blank or not."

"We didn't plan it that way," Sarah Pearson said from the balcony. "But you know the legends."

"You must be Victor Pearson," Clyde said to the bald man next to her.

"If I must. We made choices, all of us. Sacrificed happiness for the greater good. We chose to spend our lifetimes playing the long game," Victor replied.

"You were there when I set things in motion. And knowing Sarah Jane, rewrote history to make sure you were the ones to take care of it," the Doctor said. "No one's timeline crosses itself as much as hers does. Not by accident."

Victor smiled with a complete lack of humour. "We had experience in the area and something worth fighting for. I had Vaughn and Sarah." He looked wistfully at his wife. "Sarah Jane had- other things, some of which she has lost along the way."

"It's time for you to go," Sarah smiled sadly at Victor. "Keep on the path and you'll find me again. And try not to be too hard on Josie Trent. It's not her fault."

"She has to believe I'm the villain of the piece," Victor brushed a kiss across his wife's cheek before walking back into the TARDIS. "I'll miss you every day you're gone."

She turned to follow, but looked back at the Doctor. "Do not blame yourself for the sacrifices we had already made." And then she was gone.

"What did you mean about Mum's timeline crossing itself?" Luke asked. "She said it was dangerous to cross her own timeline."

"But she did it- when she went back in time to meet her parents," Clyde said.

"And probably had enough sense not to touch herself," the Doctor added. "But just being involved in the same events at the same time can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing."

Amy looked bewildered. "I touched my younger self in the museum. Nothing happened."

"There wasn't enough temporal energy left in that continuum for there to be a reaction, but I wouldn't chance it here. The last case I saw involved memory loss and a nervous breakdown."

"And some temporal drift as well," Sarah Jane leaned on the balcony to study the Doctor.

"I did wonder about that. When did the Brigadier leave UNIT anyway?" He looked at her thoughtfully. "It wasn't an accident that you got pulled into my temporal hidey-hole with me."

"Best not to ask. They thought they could use me, but-"

"If you're trying to divert someone, don't divert them into a time machine. Turlough said that earlier. Was it your older self or your younger that realised what they had done?"

"Both. They were so focused on you, they didn't see me altering the pattern."

"Consider your moves carefully. The way things were isn't sacrosanct, Sarah Jane." He looked up, suddenly worried. That had been Rassilon's flaw- altering time to suit his purposes and his vanity.

"My own timeline isn't sacrosanct, Doctor. Until the War, we had contained an enemy in a twist. He would alter time and we would thwart him, so he would try again. We weren't willing to pay the cost to defeat him forever until we had no other option. But if people will attempt to subvert Earth's timeline, we will fight back."

"Like the world with no stars?" A shadow fell over Amy's face. "Are you saying that that's happened before?"

"A few times. Sometimes even deliberately."

"You and I need to have a talk when this is all over," the Doctor said softly.

Sarah Jane gave him a rueful smile. "I may not remember this. Not consciously. It's like there's a split second when I can see the results of my potential actions, but I'm not aware of it most of the time."

"But this will bring it that much closer to the surface," the Doctor replied, fidgeting. "And I may not know where we left your younger self, but I know why."

"It was your plan once." She turned away. "I have to go now. This is the tricky bit."

"We're getting closer, aren't we?" Clyde asked.

"Yes." This time around the Doctor didn't move from his position, leaning against the console with his eyes focused on the balcony. He didn't have long to wait.

"Schroedinger's box again." Sarah Jane smiled at them.

"I was expecting you. This moment between the Faction Paradox and the Council of Eight. Letting you die in Hong Kong was the latter's first mistake. I may not have seen the pattern on Trion, but then I didn't see the consequences of my actions either."

"We chose agency. As you knew I would."

"I wasn't expecting you to do so in quite such a violent fashion. I wasn't planning a queen's sacrifice. But you and Turlough played a game of dominion once and toppled a government in the process, so I shouldn't have been surprised." The Doctor walked over to the railing and stared up at her. "I think you caught on to the fact that something was wrong in Hong Kong before I did."

"I was there when you regenerated on Dust, and I'd had a warning from my future self not all that long before," Sarah Jane replied.

"Crossing your own timeline that often in a short time can cause weird memory issues." The Doctor might have wondered if the other people in the room understood any of the conversation - if that were the sort of thing he did. As it was, he focused on the woman on the balcony to the exclusion of anything else.

"But I was never even in the same room with myself."

"Don't be disingenuous. You were close enough. Memory starts leaking, older self to younger. The other direction too, but that doesn't matter as much. But you figured that out too - or you will." He frowned at her. "And eventually, according to Luke and Clyde, you'll manage to visit yourself as a baby, and who knows what that will do to your temporal memory."

"There was a time when you would have approved."

He hadn't wanted to know it was deliberate, but he wasn't surprised either. "I'm not the man I was." He stared at her intently. "There comes a time when you have to decide if it's worth it to expend that much effort on manipulating events."

"I'd hardly call survival a waste of effort," Sarah Jane stared down at him. "Besides, I save it for special occasions. Like Hong Kong. Or the Pandorica opening. Or the Dauntless. I won't have time cut short because I choose to observe rather than to act."

The Doctor nodded. "I would expect no less of you."

"You taught us that." Once more, she turned and walked back into the depths of the TARDIS.

He was suddenly aware that Luke was staring at him.

"What happened in Hong Kong?" the boy asked, a worried look on his face.

"The same as when she was fourteen. An outside force tried to prematurely cause her death. Or maybe two different ones did. It was a bit muddled and whether she was alive or dead was inconclusive for a little while, but it all came right in the end." The Doctor glanced up at the balcony, which remained empty.

Rory moved up beside him. "Are we done then?"

"I don't think so. Almost, I think. But it's hard to tell. I don't know much about Sarah Jane's life during this period, and even less about the other three."

Before there had been no sound when figures appeared on the balcony, but this time their attention was drawn up by the clanking of heavy boots on metal.

Clyde's jaw dropped. "Sarah Jane? You're in a space suit."

The woman ignored this. "Almost there. This is the last tangle."

"Good. What next?" Amy asked. "These visitations are becoming monotonous."

"The War is coming. Not for him." She indicated the Doctor. "For him it's past. Tidied up and tucked away."

"But you want to borrow my crew to set the trap. Can you do that?"

"It's a non-linear war on a linear world. And we planned this to be quick and dirty." She hesitated, then added, "We had to time it perfectly. There's a palladium lattice portal involved. They wouldn't know where it was until it was used, and it's destroyed shortly thereafter, so we had a very short window to work in."

"You succeeded without them last time."

"Things have changed. We had to alter our plan to work with the future that is, not the future that was."

"Whatever we can do to help-" the Doctor started, but he found he was talking to naught but empty air.


	9. So Close

> So close to reaching that famous happy end  
> Almost believing this was not pretend  
> And now you're beside me and look how far we've come  
> So far we are so close  
> - _So Close_ , Jon McLaughlin

"Have you made your choice yet?" A calculated risk, depending on the side he took, but Sarah Jane knew he was as disgusted by the war as she was. She absently pushed the hood of the Blake Holsey High sweatshirt down. There was no need to hide her face here.

The Janitor studied her. "Not yet. I was sent here to watch, not to act, Herald."

She forced herself not to react to the title. It might have been a role she'd built for herself, but she was still uncomfortable when someone addressed her as such. "Sooner or later, you will have to choose a side. And what happens when the task you were assigned conflicts with the path your people have taken? What happens when Rassilon himself tells you to act?"

He took off his glasses and polished them, then put them back on. "I don't know yet. Up there," he gestured at the ceiling, "the path of history goes on as it's always done. But there are changes. Avenir isn't the only one who's been tweaking the timeline this time around. You-"

"Not me," Sarah Jane replied with a faint smile. "Victor, Sarah. Mostly Victor. We've known for a while what it would take to defeat Avenir for good, but the cost was high enough that we were content to contain him."

"And now?"

"And now the war has come to Earth. And Avenir is about to activate the Palladium Lattice." Perhaps she was telling him too much, but it was nothing he wouldn't be able to deduce on his own.

"Which both the Time Lords and the Daleks could use in ways Avenir never dreamed." the Janitor frowned. "You're setting a trap."

'We're doing the best we can with what we have. And more than that, I won't tell a potential enemy. But you've acted in the past, for Josie's sake."

"I'll think on what you've said."

It was a dismissal and she took it as such. She made her way to the rebuilt Pearadyne Labs, now abandoned again. She needed to check in with Victor.

* * *

Victor didn't look up when she entered the room. "It's not working. Come take a look at these figures."

Sarah Jane pulled up a chair and sat down beside him, frowning. "Too many variables. Not enough data. Is Turlough back yet?"

"Not yet. I hope he and Josh don't kill each other on the way back from the station."

"Turlough wouldn't see the point. Josh is merely overprotective. And after what happened with Will Sullivan, I can see his point, even if I don't feel like he has a right to make these decisions for me." It had been almost funny at Dreamland, Gibbs and Josh and Harry bristling at each other only to have Turlough insist they all leave so she could get some sleep. "They're going straight to the Lab?"

"That's what we decided was safest," Victor confirmed. "Did you talk to the Janitor?"

"Still non-committal. I think he will choose sides in the end. He's been in exile so long that he doesn't know how the war has corrupted the Time Lords." Sarah Jane covered Victor's hand with her own. "Are you going to be able to do this?"

"Administer the final push that sends my son over to the side of my enemy? Do I have a choice? We need Avenir to activate the portal _properly_ , or our trap has no bait." He pulled his hand away and started typing again, glaring at the computer each time it told him that his data was incomplete. "And Josie's clone - will she make the right choice?"

"In the end. Once she's convinced that she can't play Josie's part herself." Sarah Jane leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. "It was easier when we were pawns on the chessboard rather than players."

"I have no interest in being a pawn and neither do you. At least Avenir picked a day when a few extra people on the grounds won't be noticed."

"He'd notice me, though. Perhaps it's time for me to drop out of sight. You've got work to do."

"Manipulating my son and hoping the damage I do isn't permanent." Victor looked at her. "You had a family once."

"Once. That was overwritten a long time ago. With good reason." She liked to believe that. Reasons made things easier to bear. "And it's not as though I have a bad life. It's just lonely sometimes."

"I can understand that. Knowing Sarah will come back doesn't mean I don't miss her every day. As you must miss Turlough."

"We've never been that sort of couple. We only get along so well because we don't stress about each other's choices." She'd said that so often she almost believed it. Sarah Jane glanced at her watch. "Now I really must go. Good luck."

"Everything happens for a reason," he said, as if it would make everything alright.

And maybe this time it would.

* * *

Sarah Jane heard the TARDIS before she saw it. The engine sounded off, like a car that was backfiring. It didn't surprise her, though; this place was very temporally unstable at the moment. She glanced both ways before opening the door to the science office. Victor had given her a key to the padlock, but she didn't need it, since someone had conveniently cut through the lock. It only took her a moment to disable Lucas' gravity sensor, and then she leaned against the counter to watch the TARDIS rematerialise.

It wasn't safe for her in the school, but landing the TARDIS in Victor's mansion would have been impossible due to temporal flux. At the moment, the only entrance into the school grounds from the vortex was via the wormhole- and the wormhole would hide the TARDIS's energy signature.

She caught the Doctor's eye as the door swung open and shook her head. He quirked a smile at her and hung back to allow the others to leave the TARDIS, Josh beside him. The other man would remember being here before and stay put. They tumbled out as though the TARDIS was in the midst of a windstorm, at which point the doors slammed closed and the TARDIS dematerialised again.

Rory started to ask a question, but Sarah Jane shook her head and laid a finger to her lips.

In a low voice she said, "Join the crowd in the garden. Pretend you've come for graduation." Avenir, if he hadn't been so enraptured of his own plans, might have noticed that the crowd was much bigger than would be expected given the number of students left in the school, but then he didn't realise that he'd become a minor obstacle in their plans. Until now, they'd been content to let the time loop he'd created stand, muddling history in the process, but for their plan to work they had to close it off completely and put him out of the picture for good.

A quick peek out the window proved that Professor Zachary and the Headmistress had gone, so Sarah Jane led them through the maze of halls to the entrance and caught Ace's eye. Once she'd moved into position, Sarah Jane faded back into the school. Their whole plan hinged on Avenir not knowing she was here, and outside there was no camouflage.

* * *

Amy had gathered a rather confusing explanation from the woman who met them in the garden, who had introduced herself as Ace McShane. Apparently the Doctor couldn't be here because he was here, or he was crossing his own timeline or something like that, but Amy remembered him wandering back and forth through his past in the museum with no ill effects, so she didn't quite understand what the other woman meant.

"Short version. There is or was or will be a war throughout time. We're linear lifeforms so we can cross and recross that line. He _isn't_ ," another woman interrupted.

"Benny!" Ace blurted out. "Wasn't expecting to see you here."

Benny shrugged. "Oh, it's the usual. A supposedly non-existent cult contacted me and told me their holy book said I should be here. I wouldn't have thought anything of it if the book hadn't formerly been among the holdings Brax had me acquired around the time he went crazy and started manipulating time for fun and profit, and if it hadn't disappeared the last time the collection was invaded. I don't suppose there's any alcohol around? I could really use a drink." When Ace shook her head, Benny went on. "They showed me the page. It was about as incomprehensible as these things usually are, but it said something about a paradox trap and the end of a war. I didn't bother taking notes. These things never come clear until you've lived through the events, so why bother trying?"

"Where are we, anyway?" Clyde asked belatedly.

"Blake Holsey High, somewhere in Canada," Ace replied. "I believe it's 2006, but it's hard to tell. The chronometer on my Time Bike went all haywire when I landed here." She started to say something else, but someone caught her eye. "Pretend you're here to see someone graduate. That's Andreas Avenir. He's the head of the school and, according to Sarah Jane, not someone we want to notice us."

Obediently, the group broke up.

"Not what I expected for our honeymoon," Rory said as he caught Amy's hand in his.

"We'll have time for a proper honeymoon later. For now we have work to do- even if we don't know what it is."

* * *

The problem was that Sarah Jane was running out of places where she could stay out of sight. She didn't know if Avenir would check the bedrooms or the classrooms, so her best bet would be to spend the next few hours in Pearadyne with Josh and Turlough. They had considered hiding some of the others down here, but they didn't want too many people to suddenly appear at the appointed time. It might be noticed.

She found the two men by the machine, engrossed in a game of chess. "I play the winner," she said lightly, as she gave each man a one-armed hug and sat down to watch the match. It was much better than watching the clock.

* * *

When Victor came down to start the machine, Sarah Jane was playing against Josh and Turlough had fallen silent. Wordlessly she and Turlough left the game,took up their stations, and began running through the start-up procedures whilst Josh packed up the chess set. Victor could have done it alone, but it would be quicker this way. They couldn't tell what was going on at the school, but the machine trembled as the portal was initialised.

They waited a few minutes before walking away from the machine.

"Are you going to leave it running?" Josh asked, breaking the silence.

"It's necessary. The Palladium Lattice has been opened, so the Time Lords will be aware of it now. Leaving the machine running will keep it unstable and difficult to find until we're ready."

"And the energy field will interact with the temporal status of the school, causing all the timelines that anyone in the field have lived through to exist simultaneously. Think of it like a maze we've erected to buy us some time," Turlough added.

Sarah Jane pulled her hood up again as they followed Victor back up into the school. Avenir might be gone, but there were other people who might recognise her.

The trio waited just out of sight as Victor reunited with his wife. A few minutes later they decided it was safe to enter the science room, which showed no signs of the recent struggle.

"Josh, one last chance. I think that as the current Keeper you should see this, but if you stick around and we fail, you will get caught in the crossfire."

He shook his head. "I made my choice on the Dauntless. I'll stand with you."

Sarah Jane gave him a curt nod. "More chess? We think we timed it to after the graduation ceremony, but we don't have much to prepare. The longer the machine runs, the stronger the paradox field will be, and the more power we'll be able to use against them. And Victor and Sarah need to be visible at the ceremony."

Turlough peered through the window. "They're out there now. She must have had appropriate clothing on under her robe. Our people are interspersed with the families and it looks like they're about to start."

"Good."

* * *

Amy still wasn't sure what they were supposed to be doing here, but having met Ace and Benny, she wasn't surprised when she ended up with Charley Pollard on the opposite side from Rory and Martha Jones sitting beside Charley. But a chill ran down her spine when she spotted Victor and Sarah Pearson heading towards the rows of chairs, with Vaughn and a girl who _must_ be Josie in tow. She couldn't see the boys from where she was sitting, but Nat had had trouble with her wheelchair on the lawn, so the Janitor had pointed out a place on the drive. Nat was having an animated conversation with Ace that seemed to stop abruptly when the ceremony began.

Corrine Baxter's Valedictorian speech startled her. It sounded like the school was better at preparing people for life travelling with the Doctor than normalcy. She wished her own school leaving had been like that.

 

"Is it just me or does the air feel a little odd?" Charley asked no one in particular.

"It does," Martha agreed.

Once the ceremony was over, Amy watched as Victor Pearson greeted parents whilst his wife made a beeline for their row. "Things are about to get a little weird, so I thought I'd better warn you," Sarah said when she reached them. Every timeline you've ever lived will be simultaneously valid. It may be unpleasant, but we need you to stay on the grounds. Don't leave, don't enter the school. We need to disorient a temporally aware enemy and this is the best way to do it."

"What can we do to help?" several of their people asked, to Amy's amusement.

"Nothing. We've got it under control. If anyone notices that Victor and I have slipped away, you might need to distract them, but that's it."

"Where's Josh?" Amy blurted out.

Sarah looked startled, but she answered, "Inside. He has a slightly different role to play in this." She looked like she was about to say more, but Victor came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. "Ignore the temporal fluctuations. They won't stabilise into reality. Not if we get this right."

The two of them headed towards the school, leaving the others to stare after them in bewilderment.

A minute or so later, the first temporal wave hit, leaving Amy gripping her chair in her disorientation.

* * *

"All set?" Sarah Jane stood as the other two entered the room.

"I think so. That Doctor of yours trains his companions well." Sarah pulled two pendants from her pockets, the original one and the one Josie had brought back from the alternate timeline, carefully keeping them separate as she handed them to Sarah Jane.

Sarah Jane laid them on the counter, before drawing out her two - the one her younger self had taken from the TARDIS which had come from the world without stars and her own from this timeline, Matching one of hers to one of her namesake's, she twisted them together until she heard a click and the joined pendants hung in the air when she lowered her open palm. She nodded to Sarah to take that one as she did the same with the other two. Retreating with Turlough to the window, she watched as the other woman activated the Lattice again, splitting the room. What Avenir hadn't known was that there were other ways to power the gate - the qi gong ball method had been about brute force. This time they needed precision; hence the pendants, which Victor and Sarah Jane had designed many years before.

They didn't have the genetic paradoxes represented by Josie and Vaughn either, but that could be improvised; two on one side, two on the other. As if they'd practised it, the four of them guided the two joined pendants into the space where the qi gong ball had fit. Another click as the four pendants joined in the centre. Had the identical pendants touched, it would have caused a Blimovitch Explosion, but alternating, they formed a storage battery. Once it was in place they settled down to wait, the eerie glow of the portal casting strange shadows on the floor.

* * *

"We meet again, Ms Smith."

Victor, both Sarah Janes, and Turlough moved to stand between the Time Lords and the Lattice, whilst Sarah Pearson stood beside Josh as if she were only there to observe.

"I can't say it's ever been a pleasure, Rassilon." Sarah Jane didn't trust him not to bear a grudge against her for catching him in a mistake, even if she had saved the universe in the process. He was perfectly capable of taking what she offered and destroying her anyway.

"You will, of course stand aside. That lattice is what we need to win the war forever."

"Why would we do a silly thing like that?" Turlough asked.

Victor merely glared. "I can't think of a single reason."

"Nope," Josh offered from where he was sitting off to the side.

"Nor I," Sarah added.

"We can go through you if we have to," Rassilon blustered. "But you promised us the Book and the gate."

"Of course you can, but where's the fun in that?" Turlough asked.

Rassilon raised one gloved hand. "Do you doubt I will use every means at my disposal? Sarah Jane, you once stood on Skaro and _begged_ the Doctor to end the Daleks before they began. The fool should have listened to you."

"Everything happens for a reason," the Janitor said from the doorway. "You seem to have forgotten that."

"What are you doing here?" Rassilon asked.

"Watching, waiting. Remembering what they-" the other Time Lords who stood silent behind Rassilon-"did not. Protecting Earth's timeline and ours."

Rassilon glowered. "Don't tell me that silly cult took root on Gallifrey too?"

"Herald of Three Worlds," Sarah said softly. "Earth, Trion and Gallifrey. We had similar goals before you went to war. But I will sacrifice much to keep Earth and Trion safe."

Sarah Jane smiled and pushed back her hood. "Another fine myth you made. Almost on par with Zagreus. You helped it grow, you know. Myth thrives on the lack of facts, and you made certain the birth of the Time Lords was shrouded in mystery."

"And that path has lead us here. The Book, Ms Smith."

That was the signal. Victor's machine was still destabilising the portal and that in combination with the paradox loop they'd set up had been causing intermittent power surges through the battery they'd created, a battery that was a Blimovitch Explosion waiting to happen. All it would take was a little push.

Sarah reached for the Book and walked calmly to join the others as the three of them parted to allow the Time Lords access to the portal; as though Rassilon's threats had convinced them that they couldn't win. It flared slightly as the Time Lords drew near. It was clear that the moment the three of them had acquiesced, they had stopped being worth noticing.

Which was as it should be. The moment Sarah placed the Book of Tomorrows in Rassilon's hand, he screamed and dropped it, losing his balance for one crucial second. The Palladium Lattice had not been designed to be used by a Time Lord and at that moment it flared dramaticallly, pulling the three of them into the gate, drowning out any screams of protest.

And then the glare vanished, the gate folding back in on itself and then disappearing back into the floor, leaving the combined pendants hanging in the air. Victor knelt and pressed a hidden panel on the baseboard which slid open to reveal Professor Middleton's tesseract machine.

"What do we think?" Turlough looked up at the clock, though he knew the time distortion had rendered it useless.

"3:20. The end of the graduation ceremony," Victor said authoritatively. "Just far enough back to close off this timeline."

The Janitor frowned at them. "A stitch in time may save nine, but what are you saving here?"

"The universe. The Doctor's found a way to end the war, and we can't be leaving an escape hole." Sarah Jane reached up and gently captured the battery they had created. Separating the two halves of the battery, she absently turned one half around in her hand. "I'm sorry. I don't think you'll be able to go home again."

"I made my choice. I've used the Chameleon Arch and will live out my days as a human."

"There will always be a place for you at Pearadyne," Sarah said gently.

Josh stood and retrieved the Book from where it had fallen, absently dusting it off and tucking it under his arm.

* * *

Amy nearly collapsed when the Paradox field cut out, but caught herself on a chair. Around her, other people- their people- were doing the same. The ones who had actually been there for the ceremony were starting to collect their children and leave.

"Now what?" Rory asked, looking slightly dazed.

"Back to the TARDIS, I assume. I left my Doctor at the edge of the property." Martha gestured toward the drive leading back to the road.

"Mine is to meet me in the woods." Charley smiled and embraced them all in turn.

"My bike's in the car park. Need a lift, Benny?"

"I've got my time ring." But she followed Ace in that direction.

Rory was already on his way to join the rest of their little group on the drive, so Amy followed him.

"Should we go back to the science lab?" Nat asked.

"That might be a good idea." Victor replied, startling her. "Time is back where it belongs, but we're stuck standing in place until you've finished your quest."

"Finished our- find the four of you in the present day, you mean?" Clyde guessed.

"Precisely." Victor made an after you, Alphonse, gesture and they obeyed.


	10. Time Stand Still

> Time stand still -- I'm not looking back  
> But I want to look around me now  
> See more of the people and the places that surround me now  
> - _Time Stand Still_ , Rush

"Where now?" Luke asked. "I thought Mum would just appear again and tell us where to find her."

"I think she did." Josh pointed to the drawing, which the Doctor had affixed to the console with sticky tape.

Amy stared at the picture. "Back to where it all began. To do whatever it was didn't happen in 1996? Or just to attend my wedding?"

"Hard to tell. Have you ever seen the Terminator films? Or at least read a description?"

Nods all around.

"Every film changes the history of that world and meanwhile Sarah Connor is learning things about her future that she uses to continue changing her future. And that's what's happening here. Most of your species dismisses deja vu with a shrug, but their experiences have made them suspicious and they will dig in until they isolate what's causing it."

"And each time they succeed, they get better at it," Luke added.

"I've seen her drop into Herald persona long before she should have ever found out about the Orbus Postremo. Before she'd ever crossed paths with Duke Giuliano. Her death in Hong Kong and Turlough's death on Trion form a closed loop _because_ their paths haven't crossed in a linear fashion. I'm not even sure they know what they know or don't know at this point. What we do know is that they knew it would end in Leadworth." That had been a lot of knows, the Doctor thought absently as the lovely grinding sound that indicated that the TARDIS was landing started. "End of the line, everybody out."

They weren't in Amy's back garden, but on the Leadworth green. It only took him a moment to spot them- not many people were on the green at this time of the night and none of them had reacted to the TARDIS materialising. He'd somehow expected them to be playing dominion, but instead the four of them were lying in a circle on the grass, staring up at the stars. "Anything interesting tonight?" He asked lightly, jumping a little as his voice broke the silence of the night air.

"There are stars in Leadworth. That's always interesting," Turlough answered absently. "At least for us."

"Leadworth was always the place we went to when the stars went out. However many of us were left to make a stand against the dark." Sarah stirred and it seemed almost to be a signal because suddenly all four of them were sitting up and shaking bits of grass out of their hair.

"Mum," Luke blurted out as he knelt to give her a hug. "I can't believe how close I came to losing you."

"You found me. That's the important part." Not letting go of her son, she glanced up at the Doctor. "We figured this was the easiest way to tell if we were missing someone." She looked tired; they all did.

"Clever." He had questions, but they could wait. Instead, he dropped down onto the grass beside her, saying confidentially, "You know, they say if you see a falling star, you can make a wish." He ducked as he said this, but her hand still connected. "Ouch," he said to general laughter.

"You have to admit you deserved that," Josh said.

The Doctor wasn't about to admit any such thing - at least, not out loud. Instead, he leaned back on the grass and focused on the spin of the Earth and the quiet sound of Sarah Jane's voice as she pointed out where she had been in her travels.


End file.
